F 


IDA  M.  TARE  ELL 


BOY  SCOUTS' 
LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


Other  Books 
By  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

FATHER  ABRAHAM 

HE  KNEW  LINCOLN 

IN  LINCOLN'S  CHAIR 

LIFE  OF  ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


LINCOLN  BEGINS  His  CAREER  AS  A  PUBLIC  SERVANT 


BOY  SCOUTS' 

LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


BY 

IDA  M.  TARBELL 


Jfteto 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
1922 

All  right*  reserved 


Mdli TED   Itf    IHfi  UWira)   3J  ATES    OF  AMERICA 


COPYRIGHT,  19*1, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Stt  up  and  electrotyped.     Published  October,  19*1. 


Press  of 

J.  J.  Little  &  IVCB  Company 
New  York.  U.  S.  A. 


w 
c 


TO 
F.  S.  T. 


48348 


A  PIONEER  BOY 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  I 


CHAPTER  II 
HE  FINDS  His  KINGDOM    ........      26 

CHAPTER  III 
STARTING  OUT  FOR  HIMSELF   .......       46 

CHAPTER  IV 
A  GREAT  DECISION  ..........       76 

CHAPTER  V 
THE  CALL  OF  His  COUNTRY    .......       97 

CHAPTER  VI 
THE  FIGHT  OF  His  LIFE    ........     119 

CHAPTER  VII 
THE  BIG  GIANT  OF  ILLINOIS    .....     .     .     144 

CHAPTER  VIII 
ARMED  WITH  A  SINGLE  PURPOSE    ......     172 

CHAPTER  IX 
STEADY  IN  STORMS    ..........     I99 

CHAPTER  X 


VICTORY! 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Lincoln  begins  his  career  as  a  public  servant    .   Frontispiece 


FACING 
PAGE 


They  had  to  cut  their  road  as  they  went  ....  10 

Facsimile  of  lines  from   Lincoln's  copy-book.     .     .  20 

Running  a  ferry  across  the  great  Ohio 21 

Map  showing  Lincoln's  supposed  line  of  march  in 

Black  Hawk  War 61 

Facsimile  of  map  of  Albany,  made  by  Lincoln  .      .  69 

Facsimile  of  a  report  of  a  road  survey  by  Lincoln  .      .  73 

The  earliest  known  portrait  of  Lincoln     .      .      .      .  115 

Lincoln  in  February,  1860,  at  the  time  of  the  Cooper 

Institute  speech 148 

Grand  Review  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac    .      .      .  197 

Mr.  Lincoln  and  his  son  "Tad" 227 

Statue  of  Lincoln,  made  by  George  Gray  Barnard  .  245 


BOY  SCOUTS' 
LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 


BOY  SCOUTS' 

LIFE  OF  LINCOLN 

CHAPTER  I 
A  PIONEER  Boy 

Now  I  see  the  secret  of  the  making  of  the  best  persons, 
It  is  to  grow  in  the  open  air  and  to  eat  and  sleep  with  the 
earth. 

WALT  WHITMAN. 

"np>  OM  LINCOLN  has  bought  a  farm;"  that 
is  what  all  his  Kentucky  relatives — half- 

•*-  brothers  and  sisters,  aunts  and  uncles  and 
cousins,  were  saying  to  one  another.  To  be  sure, 
Tom  was  a  carpenter,  but  in  those  days  in  Ken 
tucky — it  was  in  1803  that  the  farm  was  bought — 
people  felt  rightly  that  the  great  business  of  a  man, 
as  in  all  newly  settled  countries,  was  clearing  and 
breaking  the  land,  opening  roads,  driving  out  In 
dians  and  wild  beasts. 

As  Tom  was  only  twenty-three  years  old  and  since 
he  was  five  had  been  an  orphan  with  no  settled  home, 
this  buying  of  a  farm  was  an  event  in  the  family.  It 
meant  that  he  was  going  to  settle  down ;  perhaps  that 
he  was  getting  ready  to  marry.  And,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  that  is  what  it  did  mean,  for  on  June  12,  1806, 


2/  '    &  :•-!  :B'v'y:  ScifiY/  .£//<?  o/  L/WCO/H 

he  was  married  to  a  girl  called  Nancy  Hanks,  like 
himself  an  orphan,  dependent  upon  her  kinsfolk — a 
sister  of  the  man  with  whom  he  had  learned  his 
trade,  Joseph  Hanks  of  Elizabethtown. 

A  wedding  was  a  great  event  in  those  days.  Peo 
ple  came  from  long  distances,  often  remaining  over 
night  for  the  infare  or  reception.  The  day  after 
Nancy  Hanks'  and  Thomas  Lincoln's  wedding,  an 
infare  was  given  jointly  by  her  guardian  and  her 
uncle,  Richard  Berry,  at  the  latter's  home  near 
Springfield,  Kentucky.  The  supper  was  long  talked 
of.  There  was  every  luxury  that  pioneer  life  af 
forded — roast  venison,  bear  steak,  barbacued  sheep, 
roasted  wild  turkeys  and  ducks;  fruit  and  maple 
syrups  served  in  big  gourds;  peaches  and  honey — a 
dozen  dishes  unknown  to  a  feast  in  our  day. 

Tom  and  Nancy  Lincoln  did  not  go  to  live  at  once 
on  their  farm,  but  for  two  years  remained  in  Eliza 
bethtown,  thirteen  miles  away,  Tom  getting  his  land 
ready  for  cultivation  and  plying  his  trade  as  he 
could.  When  they  finally  moved  into  the  country, 
they  carried  with  them  a  little  girl,  a  year  old.  And 
here  on  this  farm,  a  year  later,  the  I2th  of  Febru 
ary,  1809,  a  boy  was  born.  He  was  named  after  his 
grandfather  Abraham — Abraham  Lincoln. 

The  cabin  home  where  the  little  boy  was  born  was 
similar  to  the  first  homes  of  most  of  the  Kentucky 
settlers  in  those  early  days.  It  was  built  of  oak 
logs,  ten  to  a  side,  forming  walls  about  seven  feet 
in  height.  The  openings  between  the  logs  were 
chinked  with  mortar  of  clay  and  stones,  making  a 
solid  wall,  warm  in  winter  and  cool  in  summer.  At 


A  Pioneer  Boy  3 

one  end  of  the  cabin  was  a  big  outside  chimney,  its 
base  of  logs  and  clay,  its  stack  of  the  flat  stones  of 
that  part  of  the  world.  Inside,  over  the  great  fire 
place  was  a  mantel.  A  crane  swung  from  one  side, 
on  which  the  pots  were  hung.  And  there  was  a  wide 
stone  hearth.  There  was  but  one  window  and  one 
door  in  this  cabin,  and  the  window  never  had  other 
covering  than  a  dressed  deerskin  or  oiled  paper, 
glass  being  almost  unknown  in  Kentucky  at  that 
time. 

The  little  boy  never  knew  much  of  his  birth 
place  because,  when  he  was  between  four  and  five 
years  old,  his  father  moved  to  a  new  farm  some 
fifteen  miles  to  the  east — a  much  larger  piece  of 
land,  over  two  hundred  acres,  and  much  more  in 
teresting  as  it  was  surrounded  by  high  hills  and  was 
heavily  wooded  with  sycamore,  oak,  beech,  hickory 
— all  the  trees  of  that  part  of  the  world. 

The  woods  were  full  of  wild  fowl,  and  big  and 
little  animals.  The  land  was  cut  by  picturesque  ra 
vines  and  threaded  by  a  brook,  so  clear  that  you 
could  see  a  pebble  at  the  bottom.  Knob  Creek  the 
stream  was  called.  At  the  northern  boundary  of 
the  farm  it  emptied  into  the  Rolling  Fork  of  the 
Salt  River,  a  stream  which  flows  into  the  Ohio  west 
of  Louisville. 

By  the  time  a  boy  was  five  years  old  in  those 
pioneer  days  he  began  to  help  his  father  and  mother, 
and  little  Abraham  soon  was  bringing  in  wood  and 
carrying  water  to  the  field  where  his  father  worked, 
picking  berries  in  the  summer  and  nuts  in  the  fall 
and,  when  planting  was  going  on,  dropping  seeds. 


4  Boy  Scouts9  Life  of  Lincoln 

One  of  the  few  things  about  this  farm  he  remem 
bered  when  he  grew  up  was  a  disaster  that  came  to 
seeds  he  had  dropped.  His  father  was  planting 
corn  in  what  they  called  the  big  field — seven  acres 
lying  in  the  valley  along  the  creek.  Little  Abraham 
followed  him  and  into  every  other  hill  of  every  other 
row  he  dropped  two  pumpkin  seeds.  The  field  must 
have  seemed  pretty  big  to  a  seven-year-old  boy,  and 
he  must  have  felt  almost  as  discouraged  as  his  father 
probably  did  when,  just  after  the  planting  was  fin 
ished,  a  big  rain  sent  the  water  rushing  down  all 
the  gorges  on  the  farm,  flooding  the  entire  valley 
and  of  course  washing  out  the  pumpkin  seeds  as  well 
as  the  corn. 

But  life  on  the  farm  was  not  all  work,  nor  was  it 
lonely.  Abraham  had  not  only  his  sister  Sarah  as  a 
companion,  but  he  had  a  schoolmate,  Austin  Golla- 
her ;  and  when  school  was  not  in  session — which  was 
much  of  the  time,  the  term  rarely  being  over  three 
months  of  the  year — they  visited  back  and  forth 
whenever  their  mothers  would  consent,  and  on  these 
visits  had  many  adventures.  The  most  exciting  was 
one  Sunday  when  they  were  looking  for  partridges 
which  Abraham  had  seen  a  few  days  before.  Knob 
Creek  was  high  that  day,  and  they  wanted  to  cross 
it.  In  the  effort  to  walk  a  log,  Abraham  Lincoln 
fell  in.  Neither  of  the  boys  could  swim,  and  it  was 
only  the  courage  and  quick  wit  of  Austin  Gollaher 
that  saved  his  playmate.  Seizing  a  long  pole,  he 
succeeded  in  getting  his  drowning  companion  ashore. 
He  thought  he  was  dead  when  he  had  landed  him, 
and  was  badly  scared;  but  he  was  a  good  Scout, 


A  Pioneer  Boy  5 

though  he  had  none  of  the  fine  training  that  a  Scout 
gets  in  our  days.  "I  rolled  and  pounded  him  in 
dead  earnest,"  he  used  to  say  in  telling  the  story, 
uthen  I  got  him  by  the  arms  and  shook  him,  the 
water  meanwhile  pouring  out  of  his  mouth.  By 
this  means  I  succeeded  in  bringing  him  to,  and  he 
soon  was  all  right." 

It  was  not  only  partridges  that  drew  the  boys  to 
the  woods.  Part  of  the  education  of  the  pioneer 
was  to  know  the  tracks  of  animals,  the  call  and 
flight  of  birds  and  fowls,  the  spots  where  the  biggest 
berries  grew,  the  pools  fish  loved.  Every  sound  of 
earth  and  air,  every  change  of  color  in  the  tree  or 
the  ground,  every  print  of  hoof  or  claw,  every  trail 
of  snake,  must  be  recognized.  Abraham  and  Aus 
tin  learned  to  know  where  a  fox  had  passed,  a  deer 
had  drunk,  an  eagle  nested.  They  knew  the  honk  of 
the  wild  goose,  the  song  of  the  cardinal  bird,  and  no 
doubt  they  ran  from  many  a  real  or  imaginary  bear, 
and  killed  snakes  that  were  their  friends  as  well  as 
those  that  were  their  enemies. 

There  was  not  much  schooling,  though  both 
boys,  as  long  as  they  lived,  remembered  the  names 
of  two  of  their  teachers — Zachariah  Riney  and 
Caleb  Hazel.  Abraham  learned  much  more  at 
home  than  he  did  at  school,  for  his  mother  was  am 
bitious  that  her  children  should  have  opportunities 
that  she  and  her  husband  had  never  had.  It  was  in 
the  long  evenings  that  most  of  her  teaching  was 
done.  Sitting  on  the  doorstep,  looking  over  the 
lovely  land  in  the  summer,  or  before  the  great  roar 
ing  fire  in  the  stone  fireplace  in  the  winter,  Nancy 


6  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

and  Tom  Lincoln  told  their  children  all  the  stories 
they  knew — stories  of  the  Bible,  of  their  own  lives 
and  of  the  lives  of  all  their  forebears.  In  these  long 
evenings  the  children  learned  of  the  tragedy  of  the 
Garden  of  Eden,  how  the  boy  Moses  was  rescued 
from  the  bullrushes  and  grew  up  to  be  one  of  the 
great  men  of  the  land.  They  became  acquainted 
with  Isaac  and  Jacob  and  Samuel  and  David  and 
Goliath — the  good  men  and  the  bad  men  of  the  Old 
Testament.  They  heard  the  beautiful  story  of  the 
Christ  and  His  Disciples,  and  were  taught  to  repeat 
chapter  after  chapter  of  the  wise  and  beautiful  songs 
and  proverbs  and  teachings  of  the  great  Book. 

It  was  in  these  evenings,  on  the  doorstep  or  by  the 
fire  that  Sarah  and  Abraham  Lincoln  learned  all 
they  knew  of  the  families  of  their  father  and  mother. 
There  were  many  tales  of  hardship  and  of  thrilling 
adventure,  for  both  Thomas  Lincoln  and  Nancy 
Hanks  had  been  carried  from  Virginia  into  Ken 
tucky  when  very  little  children.  Their  families  had 
traveled  in  great  oxcarts,  on  horseback  and  on  foot, 
in  company  with  other  pioneers,  along  a  famous 
highway  called  the  Old  Wilderness  Road.  There 
were  still  Indians  and  dangerous  beasts  in  the  woods 
so  that  every  mile  of  the  journey  had  to  be  made  in 
watchfulness. 

The  story  which  they  remembered  longest  was 
that  of  the  death  of  their  own  grandfather  Lincoln, 
for  whom  Abraham  was  named.  Grandfather  Lin 
coln  had  come  to  Kentucky  with  his  family  when 
Thomas  was  only  about  two  years  old.  There  were 
four  older  children — half  brothers  and  half  sisters 


A  Pioneer  Boy  7 

of  Thomas.  Like  all  the  pioneers  of  those  days, 
they  went  for  safety  to  live  in  what  was  called  a 
stockade,  made  by  arranging  the  log  cabins  of  a 
group  of  settlers  around  a  small  court.  The  cabins 
were  connected  by  high  stout  fences.  There  was  but 
one  entrance  to  a  stockade,  and  no  openings  in  the 
outside  wall  of  these  cabins  excepting  for  rifle. 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  a  rich  man  for  those  days, 
and  he  had  taken  up  in  Kentucky  over  3,000  acres 
of  land,  in  scattered  tracts.  One  of  these  tracts  he 
had  set  about  clearing,  with  the  help  of  his  sons. 
Little  Thomas  was  of  course  too  young  to  handle  an 
ax,  but  he  usually  went  with  his  father  and  brothers 
into  the  clearing.  One  day  when  they  were  at  work, 
an  Indian  from  ambush  killed  Abraham  Lincoln. 
The  two  older  boys  ran  for  help,  leaving  Thomas 
by  his  dead  father.  Just  as  the  savage  was  seizing 
the  child,  the  oldest  boy,  who  had  reached  the  cabin 
and  found  a  rifle,  shot  him  dead,  thus  saving  his 
little  brother  from  scalping  or  captivity. 

Thomas  Lincoln  told  many  stories  of  his  wan 
derings  after  his  father's  death,  and  of  all  he 
had  seen  and  heard  in  Tennessee  and  Kentucky  and 
of  the  trips  he  had  made  down  the  Ohio  to  the  Mis 
sissippi  and  so  on  down  to  New  Orleans.  He  had 
many  thrilling  stories  of  hunting  to  tell  them,  for  he 
was  a  splendid  shot,  and  of  mighty  fights  with  quar 
relsome  bullies,  in  all  of  which  he  was  victorious. 

He  talked  to  the  children,  no  doubt,  of  their  coun 
try,  the  United  States,  which  had  declared  its  inde 
pendence  only  thirty-three  years  before  Abraham 
Lincoln  was  born.  He  told  them  what  he  knew  of 


8  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

their  Virginia  relatives  who  had  fought  in  the  Rev 
olution,  what  he  knew  of  George  Washington  and 
what  he  had  seen  and  heard  of  the  attempt  of  Aaron 
Burr  and  his  friends  to  seize  Texas  and  set  up  a 
kingdom,  in  which  he  hoped  some  day  to  include 
even  the  very  State  of  Kentucky. 

There  were  great  tales  to  tell  around  the  fire  in 
those  days  of  the  things  the  pioneer  and  his  friends 
had  seen  and  of  which  they  had  been  a  part. 

When  young  Abraham  Lincoln  was  seven  years 
old,  his  first  venture  in  pioneer  traveling  came.  His 
father  was  disappointed  with  his  life  on  Knob  Creek, 
and  thought  that  he  might  improve  his  chances  by 
moving  north  into  the  territory  of  Indiana,  which 
was  expected  soon  to  become  a  State.  One  of  his 
half  brothers,  Josiah  Lincoln,  had  already  settled 
in  Indiana,  and  a  visit  to  him  had  convinced  Thomas 
Lincoln  that  he  would  do  well  to  try  his  fortune 
there.  So,  in  1816,  he  began  his  preparations  to 
move  by  building  a  flatboat  and  by  selling  his  title 
to  the  land  on  Knob  Creek,  taking  in  exchange  a 
little  money  and  a  large  amount  of  produce  that  he 
hoped  to  be  able  to  sell  as  he  traveled. 

Late  in  the  summer,  Abraham  and  Austin  had  the 
excitement  of  seeing  this  boat  loaded  and  launched 
on  the  Rolling  Fork,  and  of  watching  Thomas  Lin 
coln  float  out  of  sight  on  his  journey. 

When  he  returned,  several  weeks  later,  he  had 
a  fine  story  of  adventure  to  tell.  His  journey  had 
been  safe  until  he  reached  the  Ohio  River,  where, 
almost  at  once,  he  was  caught  in  the  tides  and 
swamped.  With  a  great  deal  of  hard  work,  he 


A  Pioneer  Boy  9 

righted  his  boat,  rescued  his  hogsheads  and  his  tools 
and  made  his  way  across  the  river,  finally  landing 
near  the  town  of  Troy,  Indiana. 

Here  he  stored  the  freight  he  had  saved,  sold  his 
boat,  and  started  northwest  afoot  into  what  is  now 
known  as  Spencer  County.  He  told  them  that  after 
traveling  about  sixteen  miles  he  had  come  upon  a 
beautiful  piece  of  rolling  land,  heavily  wooded  with 
hickory,  oak,  walnut,  and  sugar  maples — trees  so 
old  and  large  that  they  had  in  many  places  crowded 
out  underbrush,  making  an  open  forest,  fit  for  graz 
ing.  He  told  them  how  this  land  lay  between  the 
forks  of  a  big  creek,  known  as  Pigeon  Creek,  along 
the  banks  of  which  were  many  openings  or  prairies. 
He  described  how  he  had  marked  off  a  quarter  sec 
tion  by  cutting  brush  at  the  corners  and  burning 
them,  to  indicate  that  the  land  had  been  taken,  and 
then  how,  to  legalize  this  preemption,  he  had  walked 
still  farther  west  to  Vincennes,  where  the  land  of 
fice  of  Indiana  was  then  located,  and  had  entered 
his  claim.  Now  he  was  back  and  they  were  to  start 
at  once  for  their  new  home. 

There  was  a  great  bustle  of  packing,  in  which 
the  children,  of  course,  took  their  part.  They 
helped  load  all  the  family  possessions — feather 
beds,  coverlets,  furniture,  the  Dutch  oven,  pots  and 
skillets  and  the  plow,  into  a  wagon.  Finally,  when 
all  was  ready,  the  sad  part  came,  the  saying  of  good- 
bys — Abraham  to  his  friend  Austin,  and,  saddest  of 
all,  a  visit  with  their  mother  to  the  grave  of  a  baby 
brother  who  had  died  only  a  few  months  before. 

The  journey  northward  was  full  of  joy  and  in- 


lo  Boy  Scouts9  Life  of  Lincoln 

terest  for  the  children.  They  camped  at  night  in 
strange  and  beautiful  places.  They  crossed  the 
great  river,  team  and  all,  on  a  ferry.  The  river 
must  have  seemed  like  a  sea  to  the  children.  Land 
ing  on  the  other  side,  they  took  up  their  route 
through  an  almost  unbroken  wilderness.  Only  a 
bridle  path  ran  through  this  part  of  the  country. 
They  had  to  cut  their  road  as  they  went. 

It  was  in  October  when  they  reached  their  new 
land  and  went  about  making  a  shelter  which  would 
do  them  until  they  could  build  a  home.  Of  course 
the  most  important  matter  was  to  choose  a  proper 
site,  one  with  good  drainage  and  abundant  water. 

The  place  where  the  Lincolns  settled,  while  it 
would  be  called  flat  by  those  accustomed  to  high 
hills  and  mountains,  was  a  rolling  land,  and  they 
chose  a  beautiful,  well-drained  knoll  for  their  home. 
Unfortunately,  they  discovered  after  their  clearing 
was  made  that  there  was  no  permanent  supply  of 
water  near.  One  of  the  tragedies  of  this  new  home 
was  the  fact  that  they  never  succeeded  in  getting  a 
good  well,  although  Thomas  Lincoln  exhausted  him 
self  in  the  search,  digging  in  all  directions.  There 
were  seasons  in  the  year  when  young  Abraham  and 
his  sister  were  obliged  to  carry  water  for  at  least  a 
mile. 

On  the  southwest  slope  of  this  knoll  they  made 
their  camp.  It  was  what  the  woodsman  knows  as 
a  half-faced  camp.  Two  strong,  straight  trees 
about  fourteen  feet  apart,  standing  to  the  east  and 
west,  were  chosen  and  trimmed  and  hewn  to  serve 
as  corner  posts.  The  east,  west,  and  north  sides 


A  Pioneer  Boy  n 

were  then  inclosed  in  log-cabin  fashion,  a  lighter 
timber  being  cut  than  for  a  permanent  building. 
These  sides  were  made  tight  with  clay,  the  roof  with 
sod  and  branches  of  trees.  There  was  no  chimney 
in  the  half-faced  camp,  but  in  front  on  the  open 
south  side  a  big  fireplace  was  made,  and  here  a  fire 
was  kept  burning  night  and  day,  whatever  the 
weather,  as  a  guard  against  prowling  wolves,  bears, 
and  wild  cats. 

Most  of  the  cooking  was  done  in  what  was  known 
as  a  Dutch  oven,  a  large  iron  pot,  standing  on  three 
long  legs  and  furnished  with  an  iron  cover  and  a 
handle.  A  big  bed  of  coals  was  raked  in  front  of 
the  high  pile  of  logs  which  were  always  burning 
in  the  fireplace,  and  on  these  the  pot  was  placed. 
No  better  cooking  utensil  was  ever  devised  for  stew 
or  roast  than  the  Dutch  oven,  but  you  must  have 
a  bed  of  coals  such  as  only  a  fireplace  will  give. 

A  half-faced  camp  can  be  made  livable,  even  in 
winter,  except  under  two  conditions — when  a  south 
wind  blows  the  smoke  into  the  shelter  and  when  a 
drenching  rain  soaks  everything,  inside  and  out. 
Then  camp  life  becomes  a  test  of  courage  and  cheer 
fulness.  Before  the  winter  was  over  the  Lincoln 
family  often  underwent  this  test. 

A  shelter  provided,  the  next  task  was  to  clear 
land  enough  for  the  next  season's  crop,  cut  a  boun 
tiful  supply  of  wood,  build  a  smokehouse  and  a  camp 
for  their  few  animals,  and  begin  preparing  the  tim 
ber  for  the  permanent  home,  which  they  hoped  to 
build  at  once.  Of  course,  while  this  was  going  on, 
they  had  to  keep  themselves  in  food.  This  was  not 


12  Boy  Scouts9  Life  of  Lincoln 

difficult.  The  forest  around  them  was  full  of  wild 
fruits  and  nuts  and  of  all  kinds  of  game — ducks, 
geese,  turkeys,  grouse,  quail,  pheasants.  Not  far 
away  was  a  "deer  lick,"  long  famous  in  the  coun 
try.  Tom  Lincoln  was  so  good  a  shot  that  the 
smokehouse  was  always  hung  with  hams  and  shoul 
ders  of  bear  and  venison. 

In  all  the  work  Abraham  took  his  part.  The  ax 
was  put  into  his  hands  as  soon  as  they  arrived  in 
Indiana,  and  he  was  so  strong  and  so  willing  that 
he  was  soon  able  to  swing  it  with  skill.  It  was  only 
from  hunting  that  he  held  back.  He  had  no  taste 
for  killing  things.  Just  before  he  was  eight  years 
old  he  shot  his  first  turkey — and  it  was  his  last.  He 
never  shot  deer  or  bear,  though  he  always  took  his 
part  in  guarding  family  and  neighbor  when  there 
was  danger  from  prowling  wolves.  But  if  he  did 
not  kill,  he  did  know  how  to  skin  and  butcher  ani 
mals.  Curing  and  tanning  the  hides  of  the  bear  and 
deer  and  wolf  they  took  was  almost  as  important 
to  the  family  as  the  meat,  for  it  was  from  these  skins 
that  a  large  part  of  their  clothing,  as  well  as  bed 
and  floor  coverings,  were  made. 

Abraham  Lincoln  was  a  grown  boy  before  he  had 
other  trousers  than  those  made  from  buckskin — most 
of  which  he  had  no  doubt  prepared  himself.  His 
cap  was  fashioned  from  a  coonskin,  the  tail  hang 
ing  down  behind;  and  as  for  his  shoes,  they  were 
like  the  Indians'  mocassins,  made  of  hides. 

By  the  end  of  the  first  year  their  permanent  home 
was  ready — a  generous  log  cabin  with  loft,  big  fire 
place,  windows,  and  doors.  Into  this  went  the  fur- 


A  Pioneer  Boy  13 

nishings  which  at  odd  times  Thomas  Lincoln  had 
been  making.  He  was  not  only  a  fairly  good  car 
penter,  but  a  cabinetmaker  as  well,  and  out  of  the 
timber  which  he  had  hewn  he  made  stools,  tables, 
beds — the  kind  of  furnishings  which  men,  thrown 
Robinson  Crusoe-like  into  the  woods,  provide  for 
their  needs. 

Hardly  had  they  moved  out  of  their  half-faced 
camp  into  the  new  home  when  an  aunt  and  uncle 
of  the  children  from  Kentucky  moved  into  it — Betsy 
and  Thomas  Sparrow.  They  brought  with  them 
a  grandson,  a  boy  some  ten  years  older  than  Abra 
ham,  Dennis  Hanks. 

The  coming  of  the  Sparrows  was  a  great  comfort 
to  the  Lincolns,  for  it  means  company  close  at  hand. 
Betsy  was  a  sister  of  Nancy  Lincoln,  and  the  two 
women  were  glad  to  be  together.  Uncle  Thomas 
and  Dennis  were  two  more  pairs  of  strong  arms  to 
help  Thomas  Lincoln  in  settling,  and  Dennis  was 
a  lively  and  congenial  companion  for  the  children. 

The  second  winter  in  Indiana  was  much  more 
cheerful  and  comfortable  than  the  first  had  been, 
and  life  for  the  Lincolns  would  have  continued  to 
improve  if  a  few  months  later,  in  the  spring  of  1818, 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Sparrow  had  not  fallen  ill  and  died 
of  a  malignant  malarial  fever,  which  was  ravaging 
Spencer  County.  People  called  this  disease  the 
"milk  sick,"  because  it  was  popularly  supposed  to 
be  caused  by  the  milch  cows  eating  poisonous  herbs. 
As  medicines  and  doctors  were  almost  unknown, 
the  illness  which,  properly  cared  for,  might  have 
been  cured,  was  usually  fatal 


14  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

Hardly  were  Uncle  Thomas  and  Aunt  Betsy  in 
their  graves  when  Mrs.  Lincoln  was  taken  away  by 
the  same  disease.  Poor  Nancy  and  Abraham !  It 
was  a  sorry  day  for  them  when  they  walked  behind 
the  green  pine  box  which  their  father  had  made  for 
their  mother's  coffin  and  saw  her  buried  on  a  wooded 
knoll,  only  a  half  mile  from  their  home. 

It  was  a  dismal  funeral,  for  there  was  no  min 
ister  to  read  the  Scriptures  or  say  a  prayer.  Only 
a  few  neighbors  were  there,  and  some  of  them  had 
recently  been  bereaved  in  the  same  way.  Among 
these  were  two  boys,  schoolmates  of  Abraham, 
whose  mother,  a  friend  of  Mrs.  Lincoln,  had  died 
only  a  few  days  before. 

Abraham  could  not  get  over  the  grief  of  having 
his  mother  buried  without  a  funeral  service,  and 
months  later,  a  minister  being  in  the  vicinity,  it  was 
by  his  request  that  services  were  finally  held  over 
the  little  grave  of  Nancy  Hanks  Lincoln. 

The  winter  following  all  this  grief  was  a  hard 
one  for  the  children.  Sarah  Lincoln  was  only  eleven 
years  old,  and  there  was  too  much  hard  work 
for  a  child  of  her  age.  There  were  only  a  few 
neighbors,  all  at  a  distance  and  all  heavily  burdened 
by  work  and  by  illness.  After  a  year  Thomas  Lin 
coln  decided  that  he  ought  to  seek  another  mother 
for  his  children,  and,  returning  to  Kentucky,  he 
asked  a  woman  whom  he  had  known  as  a  girl,  Sarah 
Bush  Johnston,  now  a  widow  with  three  children,  to 
be  his  wife. 

It  was  a  great  day  for  Sarah  and  Abraham  Lin 
coln  when  their  new  mother  arrived.  She  brought 


A  Pioneer  Boy  i$ 

with  her  a  big  load  of  better  furniture  than  they  had 
ever  seen  and  many  a  comfort  which  they  had  not 
known.  If  they  had  had  any  dread  of  a  stepmother, 
it  passed  at  once.  She  took  the  two  children  as 
her  own  and  made  them  a  tender  and  careful  mother. 
Abraham  came  to  love  her  as  he  had  loved  his 
own  mother. 

From  this  time  not  only  life  at  home  was  happier, 
but  things  were  much  more  promising  without. 
There  was  a  little  more  land  cleared  every  year  and 
put  into  crops.  Their  stock  increased.  Opportu 
nities  for  carpenter  and  cabinet  work  were  multi 
plying,  for  Indiana  had  been  admitted  into  the 
Union  soon  after  the  Lincolns  settled  in  Spencer 
County,  and  the  valley  of  Pigeon  Creek  was  filling 
up  with  settlers.  A  town,  Gentryville,  had  sprung 
up  only  a  mile  and  a  half  away.  This  meant  soci 
ety,  and  it  meant  work.  In  the  good  way  of  the 
pioneer,  they  helped  the  newcomers  clear  their  land, 
dig  wells,  and  build  houses.  Much  of  the  furniture 
of  the  valley  was  made  by  Thomas  Lincoln — chests 
of  drawers,  corner  cupboards,  stools,  tables,  spin 
ning  wheels.  The  community  had  grown  so  fast 
that  when  Abraham  was  eleven  years  old,  a  church 
was  built  under  the  direction  of  his  father.  In  all 
of  this  work  Abraham  helped;  indeed,  before  he  was 
eighteen  years  old  he  was  able  not  only  to  handle  an 
ax  but  all  kinds  of  tools,  even  independently  of  his 
father's  direction. 

But  it  was  not  only  at  home,  on  the  farm  and  in 
the  carpenter  shop  that  he  worked.  His  father 
hired  him  out  to  various  neighbors.  In  one  family, 


1 6  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

the  Crawfords,  he  spent  several  months.  Every 
where  that  he  went  to  live,  he  became  a  favorite,  for 
not  only  was  he  a  strong  and  willing  worker,  doing 
his  part  cheerfully,  but  he  was  most  helpful  about 
the  house.  He  might  be  tired  by  a  hard  day 
in  the  fields,  but  his  quick  eye  saw  an  empty  wood- 
box  or  water  pail,  and  he  quickly  filled  it.  Many 
a  tired  woman  in  a  family  where  he  worked  had 
him  to  thank  for  a  "lift."  Much  he  might  easily 
have  shirked  if  his  spirit  had  not  been  so  kindly,  his 
desire  to  lend  a  hand  where  it  was  needed  so  constant 
and  natural.  It  was  not  a  kind  deed  a  day  with  him; 
it  was  a  kind  deed  whenever  there  was  a  chance  for 
one — and  he  had  an  eye  for  the  chance. 

He  was  not  kind  to  his  friends  alone.  Any  one 
in  trouble,  anything  suffering,  was  sure  of  his  help 
and  championship.  Many  of  his  companions  were 
cruel  to  animals;  he  would  not  allow  it.  He  would 
lecture  them,  even  fight  them,  to  stop  it.  Anything 
that  was  helpless  he  would  champion.  There  was 
a  good  deal  of  drunkenness  in  the  country ,  and 
people  were  often  hard-hearted  toward  men  who 
had  drunk  themselves  helpless  and  insensible.  One 
night,  when  young  Lincoln  and  some  of  his  friends 
were  going  home  after  spending  the  evening  in  their 
nearest  town,  Gentryville,  they  passed  a  man,  drunk 
to  insensibility  in  the  road.  They  could  not  arouse 
him  and  Abraham's  companions  decided  to  let  him 
lie  where  he  was — good  enough  for  him,  was  their 
idea.  The  night  was  cold,  and  the  man,  if  he  had 
not  frozen  to  death,  would  certainly  have  suffered 
from  his  exposure.  Lincoln  refused  to  go  on,  and, 


A  Pioneer  Boy  17 

taking  the  man  in  his  big  arms,  carried  him  a  long 
distance  to  a  cabin,  where  he  helped  build  a  fire  and 
restore  the  half-frozen  wretch.  Such  acts  of  kind 
ness  gave  him  a  great  reputation  in  the  neighbor 
hood.  People  not  only  admired  his  strength,  but 
they  admired  still  more  his  kindness.  He  was 
"clever,"  they  said. 

People  liked  him,  too,  because  he  was  "good  com 
pany."  He  loved  to  talk,  to  tell  stories,  to  discuss, 
to  play  games.  Wherever  he  went  he  brightened 
things,  made  them  more  interesting.  His  father 
had  always  been  a  famous  story-teller  and  Abraham 
was  like  him.  He  remembered  all  the  stories  he 
heard  and  told  them  with  pantomime  and  mimicry 
that  set  everybody  into  shouts  of  laughter.  He  took 
his  part  in  all  the  games  they  played — particularly 
did  he  like  the  spelling  match,  the  debate,  and  the 
exhibitions  in  school.  He  loved  to  run  races,  to 
wrestle,  to  swim,  to  jump,  play  slap  jack,  town  ball, 
I  spy,  to  pitch  horseshoes,  to  hurl  a  hammer  or  a 
maul.  Whatever  the  game — spelling  or  wrestling, 
debating  or  lifting  weights,  he  excelled. 

In  all  these  contests,  he  played  square.  There  is 
only  one  story  told  of  him  in  which  his  fairness  can 
be  questioned,  and  several  of  his  old  friends  who  saw 
the  fight — for  it  was  a  fight — always  defended  what 
he  did.  Lincoln  and  one  of  his  friends,  William 
Grigsby,  fell  into  a  dispute  over  a  pup  which  both 
boys  claimed  and  which,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  had  been 
given  Lincoln.  Grigsby  angrily  dared  Lincoln  to 
fight  him. 

"I  can  lick,  Bill,  so  what's  the  use  fighting?"  Lin- 


1 8  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

coin  said,  but  Grigsby  insisted  and  finally  Lincoln 
proposed  to  put  his  stepbrother,  John  Johnston,  in 
his  place,  it  being  understood  that  the  pup  went  to 
the  winner.  Grigsby  and  Johnston  went  to  it,  but 
when  Lincoln  saw  that  his  substitute  was  getting 
the  worst  of  it,  he  suddenly  seized  Grigsby  by  the 
collar  and  the  seat  of  his  trousers  and  threw  him  over 
the  heads  of  the  crowd  that  had  collected ! 

The  defense  his  friends  made  for  his  action  was 
that  Grigsby  knew  the  dog  belonged  to  Lincoln  when 
he  claimed  it. 

His  love  of  fun  and  of  talk  often  interfered  with 
work. 

"When  Abe  started  fooling,"  one  of  his  old 
friends  said,  "the  boys  would  throw  down  their  tools 
and  join  him,  and  so  they  would  when  he  started 
talking."  The  only  real  trouble  that  Thomas  Lin 
coln  had  with  his  son  was  keeping  him  steadily  at  his 
tasks.  And  this  was  the  only  complaint  of  those  for 
whom  he  worked.  He  had  one  task  with  which  this 
propensity  never  interfered,  and  that  was  going  to 
the  mill.  Flour  and  meal  were  not  bought  at  the 
store  in  those  days  as  now.  The  pioneer  raised 
his  own  corn  and  wheat  and  sent  it  at  intervals  to 
be  ground.  It  was  generally  an  all-day  task,  for 
the  mills  were  at  some  distance  and  you  must  await 
your  turn  when  you  arrived,  and  the  process  was 
slow.  The  grain  was  put  between  two  heavy  round 
millstones  and  to  these  were  attached  a  long  pole 
or  sweep  which  was  turned  by  the  horse  which  had 
brought  the  grain. 

Of  course  the  waiting  for  his  turn  gave  young 


A  Pioneer  Boy  19 

Lincoln  a  fine  time  for  talk  and  fun.  One  of  the 
most  curious  experiences  of  his  boyhood  and  one  of 
which  he  often  talked  when  he  grew  up  came  to  him 
while  grinding  corn.  He  was  urging  the  horse  to  a 
quicker  pace,  and  started  to  say,  "Get  up,  you  old 
hussy,"  when  the  horse  kicked  him,  knocking  him 
unconscious  in  the  middle  of  his  sentence.  His  com 
panion  could  not  bring  him  to,  and,  frightened,  ran 
for  help.  It  was  some  hours  before  he  regained 
consciousness,  and  when  he  came  to  himself  he  called 
out  the  end  of  the  sentence  which  which  had  been 
broken  by  the  kick  of  the  horse — "you  old  hussy." 
Mr.  Lincoln  used  often  to  wonder  how  it  could  be 
that  his  mind,  after  hours  of  what  was  called  com 
plete  unconsciousness,  could  take  up  its  work  at  the 
very  point  where  it  had  dropped  it. 

People  not  only  liked  but  they  trusted  him.  He 
never  lied,  never  tried  to  shirk  the  blame  for  a  mis 
take.  Over  the  door  of  the  little  log  school  on 
Pigeon  Creek  a  fine  pair  of  antlers  were  fastened. 
One  day  Lincoln  carelessly  seized  one  of  the  prongs 
and  attempted  to  swing  back  and  forth  from  it.  His 
weight  was  too  much  and  it  broke  with  him.  When 
the  teacher  came  in  he  was  very  angry  and  demanded 
to  know  who  had  broken  the  antlers.  Lincoln  did 
not  hesitate.  "I  did,"  he  confessed.  "I  did  not 
mean  to  do  it,  but  I  hung  on  it  and  it  broke.  I 
wouldn't  have  done  it  if  I'd  thought  it'd  a  broke." 

As  time  went  on  and  Abraham  grew  older  and 
stronger,  work  outside  of  Pigeon  Creek  Valley  was 
offered  him.  The  winter  he  was  seventeen  he  passed 
in  the  settlement  at  the  mouth  of  Anderson  Creek 


2O  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

where  it  flows  into  the  Ohio — a  place  near  where 
he  and  his  father  had  landed  in  1816 — running  a 
ferry  across  the  great  river. 

Keeping  the  ferry  meant  that  Abraham  saw  all 
the  new  settlers  coming  into  Indiana  by  this  route, 
and  heard  their  stories  and  their  discussions.  He 
talked  with  men  and  women  going  to  the  north  and 
south  on  visits  and  business,  with  traveling  preachers, 


A/ 


FACSIMILE  OT  LINES  FROM  LINCOLN'S  COPT  BOOK. 

teachers  and  politicians;  and  of  course  he  learned 
all  about  the  river  traffic  of  the  Ohio. 

The  Ohio  was  the  highway  of  Indiana  and  all  the 
neighboring  States.  It  was  by  it  the  settlers  received 
their  news  and  their  goods,  and  it  was  by  it  they 
sent  out  the  produce  they  raised.  Every  description 
of  boat  known  at  that  time  could  be  seen  on  the 
river.  Great  flatboats  loaded  with  produce,  floating 
down  to  New  Orleans,  passed.  Trading  boats,  car 
rying  furniture,  groceries,  clothes,  harness,  wagons, 
plows,  kitchen  utensils — everything  that  the  general- 
store  keepers  of  the  settlements  dealt  in — tied  up 


A  Pioneer  Boy  21 

for  business.  "Arks"  and  "Sleds" — a  primitive  kind 
of  houseboat  made  by  building  a  small  cabin  on  a 
flatboat,  with  families  on  their  decks,  the  women 
cooking  or  washing  or  sewing,  the  children  playing 
beside  them — floated  by.  And  now  and  then  came  a 
steamboat.  The  first  was  seen  on  the  Ohio  River 
when  Abraham  was  only  three  years  old,  but  by  this 
time,  1826,  there  were  many  of  them. 

The  river  life  fascinated  young  Lincoln.  Why 
should  he  not  go  to  New  Orleans,  too?  Other  boys 
did.  Boys  no  older  than  he  went  with  produce  they 
had  raised  themselves.  In  his  leisure  time  he  put 
in  a  piece  of  tobacco  not  far  from  the  ferry.  He 
went  back  home  with  the  idea  buzzing  in  his  mind, 
-and  began  working  with  all  his  might  to  raise  enough 
potatoes,  corn,  and  bacon  to  justify  an  expedition. 
His  father  and  mother  were  doubtful  about  the  un 
dertaking.  They  naturally  feared  some  harm  might 
come  to  him,  but  he  was  so  eager  and  worked  so 
hard  that  they  finally  consented. 

When  his  produce  was  ready,  Abraham  went  to 
Anderson's  ferry  and  built  a  flatboat — not  very 
large,  but  sufficient  for  what  he  had  to  carry.  While 
he  was  working  on  this  boat  one  day,  and  wondering 
if  it  were  stanch  enough  for  the  trip,  two  strangers 
rode  down  to  the  river  bank  and  hired  him  to  take 
them  out  with  their  luggage  to  a  passing  steamer — 
there  were  no  wharves  at  the  small  river  towns  in 
those  days,  so  that  passengers  rowed  out,  the  steamer 
stopping  when  hailed.  He  sculled  them  out,  and 
they  jumped  on  board  without  paying  him. 

"You  have  forgotten  to  pay  me,"  he  called  after 


22  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

them.  They  had  forgotten,  and  each  man  threw 
him  a  silver  half  dollar.  He  could  scarcely  believe 
his  eyes.  Never  before  had  he  earned  half  that 
much  in  a  day,  and  even  then  it  went  to  his  father. 
But  this  was  his.  It  put  hope  into  him  and  it  made 
him  thoughtful.  If  money  was  to  be  earned  by 
being  on  hand  when  and  where  people  needed  help, 
he  proposed  to  earn  more. 

Whether  Abraham  took  this  flatboat  that  he  had 
built  to  New  Orleans  or  not,  we  do  not  know.  It  is 
quite  possible  that  he  gave  up  this  trip  because  he 
had  an  opportunity  to  go  about  this  time  as  a  hand 
with  one  of  his  acquaintances,  an  older  man,  who  was 
making  the  trip  on  a  much  larger  boat  than  he  could 
have  possibly  built.  A  little  later,  too,  he  went  down 
the  river  to  New  Orleans  on  a  journey  of  which  he 
often  talked  when  he  grew  to  be  a  man.  This  trip 
was  made  as  a  "bow  hand"  on  a  trading  boat  that 
Mr.  Gentry,  the  leading  citizen  of  Gentryville,  was 
sending  down,  in  care  of  his  own  son,  and  he  hired 
Abraham  to  go  along  for  eight  dollars  a  month  and 
his  passage  back. 

To  take  a  flatboat  as  large  as  that  the  Gentrys 
built  down  the  Ohio  and  the  Mississippi  was  a  task 
that  called  for  both  brains  and  muscle.  The  boat 
was  fully  forty  feet  in  length,  with  a  double  bottom 
of  stout  oak  planks.  It  had  a  rough  shelter  on  the 
deck.  It  was  provided  with  two  pairs  of  stout  long 
oars  at  bow  and  stern,  a  check  post  and  coil  of  rope, 
and  what  was  called  a  setting  pole  for  steering.  The 
current  of  the  river  would  carry  such  a  .boat  as  this 
from  four  to  six  miles  an  hour.  The  crew's  work 


A  Pioneer  Boy  23 

was  largely  piloting.  There  were  many  bends  in 
the  river,  the  winds  were  capricious  and  the  currents 
tricky,  and  in  many  places  the  traffic  crowded.  It 
called  for  skillful  steering.  They  traded  as  they 
traveled,  tying  up  wherever  they  thought  there  was  a 
chance  for  a  market,  exchanging  their  boat's  load 
of  bacon,  potatoes,  and  cloth  for  cotton,  tobacco,  and 
sugar. 

The  boys  spent  a  little  time  sight-seeing  in  New 
Orleans,  disposed  of  their  boat,  and  came  back  by 
steamer.  Going  to  Europe  nowadays  would  not 
have  meant  more  to  a  boy  than  these  trips  to  New 
Orleans  did  to  Abraham  Lincoln.  When  he  came 
back  to  take  up  his  tasks  on  the  farm  and  at  the  car 
penter's  bench  he  had  more  to  think  and  talk  about 
than  ever  before  in  his  life. 

The  river  was  the  great  world  to  him  and  he  was 
eager  to  follow  it.  The  greatest  man  on  the  river, 
as  he  had  seen  him,  was  the  pilot.  Why  should  he 
not  be  a  pilot?  He  talked  it  over  with  an  older 
friend  in  whom  he  had  confidence,  and  it  was  only 
at  his  insistence  that  he  gave  up  the  dream.  His 
friend  believed  that  it  was  Abraham's  duty  to  stay 
with  his  father  until  he  was  twenty-one,  so  reluctantly 
he  gave  up  his  ambition  to  be  a  river  pilot  and  re 
mained  at  home  until  he  was  of  age. 

For  twenty-one  years  his  life  was  almost  en 
tirely  that  of  a  laborer.  What  did  he  learn  from 
this  hard  pioneer  work?  He  knew  how  to  swing 
an  ax  as  well  as  any  man  in  the  West,  to  select  and 
prepare  trees  for  cabins  and  rails  and  timber.  He 
could  use  tools,  and  plan  and  build.  He  could 


24  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

handle  a  horse,  a  plow,  a  scythe,  a  flail — could  build 
and  steer  a  flatboat.  His  eye  was  keen  for  every 
moving  thing.  He  could  see  a  hundred  sights  that 
none  but  the  woodsman  ever  sees.  He  knew  the 
ways  of  bears  and  deer,  partridges  and  pheasants, 
the  songs  of  scores  of  birds.  He  was  weather-wise 
and  weather-hardened,  he  had  known  cold  and  hun 
ger  and  weariness.  It  had  seasoned  and  trained  him 
until  he  could  lift  a  weight,  run  a  race,  and  wrestle 
with  any  man  in  all  the  country. 

He  knew  men  by  constant  association  with 
them,  laboring  by  their  side  in  clearing  land,  in 
building,  planting,  harvesting,  and  trading.  He 
had  learned  to  get  on  with  people — people  of  all 
sorts — stupid,  quarrelsome,  cowardly.  He  had 
learned  to  make  himself  first  among  people  by 
kindness,  courage,  helpfulness,  cheerfulness,  hon 
esty,  loyalty. 

He  had  learned  the  meaning  of  labor.  He  saw 
that  it  was  by  labor  that  new  lands  are  opened;  men 
and  women  fed,  clothed,  and  sheltered,  homes  made 
possible,  cities  built,  a  country  made  great.  He 
saw  that  all  progress  and  happiness  come  from 
man's  power  to  labor,  and  he  learned  to  despise  the 
man  that  did  not  do  his  part  in  carrying  out  this 
law  of  God  and  man. 

He  was  a  man,  every  inch  of  him,  by  the  time 
he  was  twenty-one,  the  kind  of  man  that  the  pioneer 
understands  and  admires.  But  there  was  another 
side  to  Abraham  Lincoln  at  twenty-one  that  few  of 
those  about  him  understood.  It  was  something  that 
made  them  say  sometimes  that  he  was  "different" 


A  Pioneer  Boy  25 

from  the  rest  of  them.  For  in  these  years,  while 
he  was  learning  the  life  of  the  laborer  and  practic 
ing  it,  shoulder  to  shoulder,  with  his  elders  as  well 
as  with  those  of  his  own  age,  he  had  been  carrying 
on  another  life,  a  life  in  his  mind.  The  activities 
of  this  mind  life  of  his  had  been  as  constant  as  the 
activities  of  his  physical  life.  It  had  had  as  many 
handicaps  and  as  many  hardships,  and  just  as  the  life 
of  the  pioneer  which  he  had  known  had  had  a  definite 
goal — the  settling  and  the  development  of  the  coun 
try,  so  Abraham  Lincoln  had  had  in  the  life  of  his 
mind  a  goal.  He  wanted  to  understand  things — 
to  know  what  was  in  books.  He  wanted  to  be  able 
to  explain  what  he  had  learned  to  others,  to  persuade 
and  move  them.  Quite  as  early  as  the  day  when  the 
ax  had  been  put  into  his  hand,  he  had  had  this  ambi 
tion.  He  had  never  given  it  up  any  more  than  he 
had  been  allowed  to  give  up  the  ax.  How  far  had 
he  gone  by  this  time  in  this  mind  life?  How  had 
he  been  able,  laboring  by  day  as  he  did,  to  carry  it 
on?  How  far  was  he  on  his  way  toward  being  an 
educated  man,  a  man  of  influence  with  other  men? 


CHAPTER  II 

HE  FINDS  HIS  KINGDOM 

My  mind  to  me  a  kingdom  is. 

EDWARD  DYBR. 

DID  you  ever  hear  of  a  "blab"  school?  That 
is  what  the  settlers  of  southwestern  Indiana 
called  the  school  that  Abraham  Lincoln  at 
tended  when  he  was  a  boy.  If  you  had  lived  there 
you  could  not  have  passed  the  log  schoolhouse  with 
out  knowing  that  the  name  fitted,  for  as  you  ap 
proached  you  would  have  heard  a  steady  hum  of 
voices,  growing  louder  as  you  passed  by,  which  you 
would  have  known  could  only  have  come  from  every 
body  talking  together.  And  so  it  was.  The  pupils 
were  studying  out  loud.  There  were  so  few  books 
that  the  teacher  was  obliged  to  read  each  lesson 
aloud  and  the  boys  and  girls  repeated  it  after  him. 
It  is  probable  that  Abraham  Lincoln  never  owned  a 
schoolbook  in  those  days.  The  habit  he  learned 
in  the  ublab"  school  stayed  with  him,  for  all  his  life 
he  loved  to  read  aloud,  and  when  he  was  preparing 
a  speech  he  would  repeat  over  and  over  the  argument 
and  struggle  with  sentences  until  he  had  them  in  a 
form  where  they  sounded  right. 

The  schools  were  as  poor  in  furniture  and  conve 
niences  as  in  books.    Everything  that  the  pupils  used 

26 


He  Finds  His  Kingdom  27 

was  homemade.  The  benches  were  made  of 
puncheons,  set  in  rough  logs,  so  were  the  tables. 
And  as  for  blackboards,  globes,  reference  books, 
and  pictures — there  were  none.  The  only  branches 
that  the  teachers  attempted  were  reading,  writing, 
and  arithmetic. 

But  this  poverty  of  books  and  furniture  did  not 
prevent  the  schools  being  full  of  life  and  variety.  If 
they  had  little  they  made  much  of  what  they  had. 
There  might  be  but  one  reader,  but  it  was  packed 
with  interesting  selections,  meant  not  only  to  give  a 
good  vocabulary  but  to  teach  history,  natural  science, 
geography,  as  well  as  to  arouse  a  love  of  generous 
actions  and  a  contempt  for  meanness  and  injustice. 
Many  of  the  selections  chosen  dealt  with  the  men 
that  had  formed  the  United  States  and  with  their 
hopes  that  in  this  new  land  there  would  be  freedom 
and  a  chance  for  all  that  were  oppressed. 

The  very  problems  in  the  arithmetic  often  aimed 
to  teach  facts  about  the  country,  as  those  given 
Abraham  when  he  was  studying  subtraction : 

"General  Washington  was  born  in  1732.  What 
is  his  age  in  1787?" 

"America  was  discovered  by  Columbus  in  1492 
and  its  independence  declared  in  1776.  How  many 
years  elapsed  between  these  events  ?" 

Having  no  books,  and  eager  to  have  copies  of  the 
examples  given  out,  Abraham  made  himself  copy 
books  by  fastening  together  sheets  of  paper. 

Much  was  made  of  spelling  in  the  pioneer  schools, 
the  pupils  choosing  sides  and  spelling  down  almost 
every  day.  One  of  the  excitements  of  the  neighbor- 


28  Boy  Scouts9  Life  of  Lincoln 

hood  was  the  public  spelling  bee.  Lincoln  was  so 
much  better  speller  than  most  of  his  friends  that  the 
side  which  had  him  for  a  leader  at  these  bees  nearly 
always  won.  Indeed,  finally,  he  was  ruled  out  of  the 
contests  entirely  because  of  his  superior  accuracy. 
This  did  not  prevent  his  giving  a  hint  to  his  friends 
sometimes  when  they  were  puzzled  over  a  word. 

One  of  his  little  girl  friends  told  as  long  as  she 
lived  how  once  when  she  was  hesitating  whether 
defied  was  spelled  fi,  fy  or  fe,  she  looked  at  Lincoln 
and  he  put  his  finger  to  his  eye.  She  took  the  hint 
and  spelled  the  word.  In  spite  of  this  early  reputa 
tion,  Lincoln  never  was  an  accurate  speller.  He 
knew  this  himself.  Once  a  boy  who  had  been  taken 
by  his  father  to  call  on  Mr.  Lincoln  in  the  White 
House  heard  the  President  tell  how  his  secretaries 
had  trouble  with  him  because  he  rarely  spelt  very 
right;  he  made  it  verry.  The  boy  never  forgot  hear 
ing  a  President  of  the  United  States  confess  that 
there  were  words  that  he  could  not  spell. 

Another  important  event  in  the  "blab"  school,  to 
which  all  the  neighborhood  flocked,  were  the  debates. 
One  subject  which  always  brought  out  a  heated  argu 
ment  in  which  the  fathers  and  mothers  of  the  chil 
dren  took  a  keen  interest,  was,  "Which  has  the  most 
to  complain  of,  the  Indian  or  the  negro?" 

Besides  the  spelling  bee  and  the  debate,  the  schools 
held  what  they  called  exhibitions,  generally  at  the 
end  of  the  term.  All  the  pupils  were  expected  to 
perform,  either  speaking  pieces  or  taking  parts  in 
dialogues.  In  these  exercises,  as  in  the  spelling  and 
debating,  Lincoln  excelled,  He  loved  to  speak,  and 


He  Finds  His  Kingdom  29 

as  his  memory  was  good  and  his  ideas  of  the  mean 
ing  of  the  piece  clear,  he  nearly  always  aroused  his 
audience  to  enthusiasm  by  his  rendering. 

But  Lincoln  did  not  have  many  terms  at  even  the 
"blab"  schools.  All  the  days  that  he  passed  inside 
of  a  school  house  do  not  amount  to  more  than  a  year. 
There  were  a  few  weeks  in  Kentucky  before  he  was 
eight  years  old  and  short  periods  after  he  moved  into 
Indiana;  one  when  he  was  ten,  another  when  he 
was  fourteen,  and  the  last  and  shortest  when  he  was 
seventeen. 

Abraham  realized  that  he  would  certainly  forget 
what  he  learned  in  these  broken  terms  unless  he  con 
stantly  put  it  in  practice.  Nothing  slips  away  from 
one  like  unused  knowledge.  He  was  determined  not 
to  let  anything  escape,  and  he  worked  out  his  own 
system  of  saving  his  learning.  He  would  lie  on  the 
floor  at  night  before  the  open  fire  and  on  the  back 
of  the  big  wooden  shovel,  with  a  piece  of  charred 
wood,  use  the  multiplication  table  on  problems  which 
he  made  up;  and  when  the  shovel  was  covered,  he 
would  pare  off  the  surface  with  a  sharp  knife  and 
begin  again.  Nor  did  he  allow  himself  to  forget 
the  pieces  which  he  had  learned  in  school,  often  de 
claiming  them  before  his  parents  and  their  visitors. 

Abraham  not  only  saved  what  he  had  learned  in 
school;  he  found  ways  of  adding  to  it.  He  discov 
ered  when  he  was  still  very  young  that  everybody 
about  him  knew  something  that  he  did  not  know,  and 
that  by  listening  and  asking  questions  of  others  he 
could  learn  things  that  could  not  always  be  found 
in  books,  certainly  not  in  books  that  he  had.  His 


30  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

curiosity  about  what  was  going  on  in  the  world,  about 
what  people  were  doing  and  how  they  were  doing 
it,  what  they  thought  and  why  they  thought  it,  was 
so  great  that  he  rarely  met  a  stranger  that  he  did 
not  try  to  learn  from  him.  He  would  leave  his  work 
— to  the  disgust  of  his  father  or  employer — when  a 
stranger  passed  on  the  road,  and  ask  questions. 

One  of  the  places  where  he  learned  most  from 
others  was  the  general  store  at  Gentryville,  kept  by 
William  Jones.  It  was  the  custom  on  mail  day,  Sat- 
urda^1  afternoons,  rainy  days,  and  almost  every  even 
ing,  for  the  men  and  boys  in  and  around  Gentryville, 
to  gather  in  Mr.  Jones'  store.  They  talked  of  the 
weather,  of  the  crops,  and  of  all  the  joys  and  trag 
edies  of  the  countryside.  They  listened  to  everybody 
who  had  come  back  from  a  trip  down  the  river  and 
to  every  visitor  that  had  come  from  the  East  or  the 
South.  Chiefly,  they  discussed  politics.  The  mail 
came  once  a  week,  by  a  carrier  from  Rockport.  He 
brought  the  one  regular  paper,  a  weekly,  the  Louis 
ville  Journal. 

Lincoln  was  so  good  a  reader  that  he  was  often 
asked  to  read  articles  to  the  company.  And  then 
came  the  discussion.  There  were  great  questions  to 
discuss,  too,  and  Lincoln  always  went  home  with  his 
mind  full  of  new  thoughts  and  new  information  after 
an  evening  spent  in  Jones'  store. 

His  habit  of  watching  what  went  on  around  him 
and  of  asking  questions  when  he  was  puzzled,  served 
him  well  when  he  was  a  ferryman  and  on  his  trips 
down  the  Mississippi.  What  a  boy  gets  out  of  hikes 
and  travel  depends  upon  how  good  a  use  he  makes 


He  Finds  His  Kingdom  31 

of  his  eyes  and  his  tongue,  upon  his  ability  to  see 
things  as  they  are  and  to  ask  wise,  not  foolish,  ques 
tions.  Lincoln  could  make  a  trip  on  foot  to  Rock- 
port,  fifteen  miles  from  his  home,  and  come  back 
with  more  information  and  new  ideas  than  a  boy 
who  had  not  his  trained  faculty  for  seeing  and  listen 
ing  would  bring  back  from  a  trip  to  Europe. 

He  was  not  only  a  listener  and  an  observer ;  he  had 
discovered  when  a  very  little  fellow  that  stories  of 
what  men  thought  and  had  done  could  be  found  in 
books.  It  was  the  Bible  which  first  taught  him  this. 
It  was  difficult  to  get  Bibles  in  those  days.  When 
the  colonies  first  quarreled  with  England,  they  put 
an  embargo  on  all  imports.  As  there  was  neither 
paper  nor  type  enough  in  the  country  to  print  Bibles, 
there  was  soon  such  a  dearth  of  them  that  in  1777 
Congress  ordered  the  purchase  of  20,000  in  Hol 
land.  When  the  war  was  over,  cheap  Bibles  came 
in  again  from  England,  and  were  scattered  over  the 
country  where  they  were  needed  most.  It  was  one 
of  these  English  Bibles  that  came  into  Thomas  Lin 
coln's  household.  Abraham's  education  was  founded 
on  this  book.  He  knew  much  of  it  by  heart.  He  was 
familiar  with  the  lives  of  the  men  that  it  tells  about, 
he  thoroughly  absorbed  its  wonderful  teachings,  and 
even  as  a  boy  he  tried  to  model  his  conduct  upon 
them. 

For  a  number  of  years  this  Bible  was  the  only 
book  he  had  at  home,  but  he  was  so  eager  to  read 
that  he  always  was  on  the  lookout  for  books  in  other 
people's  houses.  Wherever  he  heard  of  a  book,  any 
where  within  twenty  miles,  he  could  not  rest  until  he 


32  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

had  borrowed  it;  he  would  keep  it  in  his  pocket  and 
read  it  whenever  he  had  a  spare  moment.  Much  as 
he  enjoyed  talking  and  playing  games  at  noontime 
when  he  was  working  with  a  number  of  boys,  if  he 
had  a  book  he  would  go  off  by  himself  and  read;  and 
at  night,  after  he  had  his  supper,  he  would  go  to  his 
room  and  read  as  long  as  there  was  light.  Before 
returning  a  borrowed  book  he  would  often  make 
long  extracts  of  the  passages  that  had  interested  him 
most — not  so  simple  a  thing  for  a  boy  to  do  that  in 
those  days.  Lincoln  had  not  only  to  save  paper  and 
sew  it  together  for  a  copybook,  but  he  had  to  cut 
his  pen  from  turkey  quills  and  make  his  ink  from 
brier  root. 

The  winter  that  he  spent  at  the  mouth  of  Ander 
son's  Creek,  running  the  ferry,  he  lived  in  a  house 
where  there  were  many  books,  most  of  them  new  to 
him,  and  the  family  were  surprised  to  find  that  he 
spent  his  night,  as  well  as  his  little  leisure  in  the  day 
time,  reading. 

One  of  the  most  serious  difficulties  that  he  had  as 
a  boy  came  from  being  not  as  careful  as  he  should 
have  been  of  a  book  he  had  borrowed.  It  was 
Weems's  "Life  of  Washington."  Lincoln  was  fas 
cinated  with  the  story  of  Washington's  goodness  and 
greatness  and  his  services  to  the  country,  and  he  read 
and  re-read  the  volume.  One  night  he  left  it  in  a 
crack  between  two  logs  of  the  cabin.  A  rainstorm 
came  up  while  he  was  asleep  and  the  book  was 
soaked.  The  owner  was  Josiah  Crawford,  a  neigh 
bor  near  Gentryville,  and  Lincoln  went  at  once  to 
him  and  showed  him  what  had  happened.  Mr. 


He  Finds  His  Kingdom  33 

Crawford  perhaps  wanted  to  give  the  boy  a  lesson  in 
carefulness,  or  perhaps  he  thought  it  was  a  chance 
to  get  some  extra  help  at  his  work.  At  any  rate,  he 
told  him  that  as  a  penalty  for  the  injury  he  had 
allowed  to  come  to  the  book,  he  must  pull  fodder 
for  three  days.  As  a  man  was  paid  only  about  thirty 
cents  a  day  at  that  time  and  as  the  book  was  rare 
and  valuable,  it  was  not  an  unjust  punishment. 

His  hunger  for  books,  for  it  can  be  called  nothing 
else — a  hunger  quite  as  real  as  that  one  feels  for 
food — and  the  time  and  trouble  he  gladly  took  to  get 
them,  earned  him  more  than  one  useful  friend.  For 
instance,  there  was  the  constable  in  Gentryville, 
David  Turnham,  who  owned  a  copy  of  the  revised 
statutes  of  Indiana,  which  he  used  himself  in  his  busi 
ness.  Lincoln  was  so  interested  in  this  book,  which 
contained  not  only  the  laws  of  the  State  but  a  copy 
of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  and  the  Consti 
tution  of  the  United  States,  that  he  used  to  go  to 
Mr.  Turnham's  house  and  read  there.  This  ac 
quaintance  grew  into  a  friendship  which  lasted  as 
long  as  Mr.  Turnham  lived.  He  always  treasured 
the  book  which  Abraham  had  read  so  often  at  his 
home,  and  years  later,  after  the  assassination,  he 
gave  the  book  to  Mr.  Lincoln's -friend  and  law  part 
ner,  William  Herndon.  It  is  now  in  New  York 
City,  one  of  the  treasures  of  the  Library  of  the  New 
York  Law  Institute. 

The  more  Lincoln  read,  the  more  he  wanted  to 
read.  Often  he  brooded  over  his  handicaps — his 
few  books — always  borrowed  and  never  his  own — 
the  difficulty  of  finding  time  to  read  when  he  must 


34  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

work  from  sunrise  to  sunset  six  days  in  the  week — 
the  lack  of  companions  interested  like  himself.  It 
was  hard,  lonely  work  educating  himself.  He  seems 
never  to  have  allowed  his  discouragement  to  get  the 
better  of  him.  However  hard  things  were,  he  stuck 
to  his  determination  to  know  and  to  understand.  In 
his  ambition  he  was  fortunate  in  having  the  help  and 
sympathy  of  his  stepmother.  When  his  father 
fretted  because  the  boy  "wasted"  so  much  time  read 
ing,  she  defended  him.  She  loved  to  talk  over  with 
him  what  he  had  read  and  sought  in  every  way  she 
could  to  make  it  easier  for  him  to  find  time  and 
materials  for  study. 

The  more  he  read  and  studied,  the  more  he 
learned  about  using  his  mind.  He  began  to  see  that 
it  was  not  the  number  of  books  he  read  that  mat 
tered,  that  it  was  the  mastery  of  what  was  in  them. 
He  discovered  that  when  he  had  laid  aside  a  book 
for  the  ax  or  plow  or  hammer,  he  could  still  use  his 
mind  on  its  contents,  make  sure  that  he  understood 
it  fully. 

To  be  certain  that  he  really  understood  was  one 
of  his  great  desires.  He  had  no  patience  with  slov 
enly  thinking.  When  he  was  a  very  little  boy,  if  he 
heard  people  talking  about  things  which  he  did  not 
understand,  he  would  sometimes  lie  awake  half  the 
night  trying  to  figure  them  out.  He  was  never  satis 
fied  until  he  had  a  thing  clear  in  his  mind.  He  strug 
gled  a  long  time  to  understand  the  relation  of  the 
earth  to  the  sun  and  the  moon.  Finally,  he  had  it  so 
clearly  fixed  in  his  mind  that  he  could  make  his  com 
panions  understand  it.  A  little  girl  friend  used  to 


He  Finds  His  Kingdom  35 

tell  when  she  was  a  grown  woman  how  one  day  she 
said  to  Abraham,  "The  moon  is  going  down."  And 
he  replied,  "No,  it  is  not  going  down,  but  we — the 
earth,  are  going  down;"  and  then  went  on  and  ex 
plained  the  revolution  of  the  earth  on  its  axis,  and 
its  course  around  the  sun. 

He  soon  discovered  that  the  more  clearly  he  ex 
plained  to  others  the  more  fully  he  understood  him 
self  and  the  more  firmly  facts  and  ideas  were  fixed 
in  his  mind.  Whenever  he  could  find  anybody  to 
listen  to  him  he  would  go  over  what  he  had  read. 
As  he  grew  older  he  often  had  an  audience  of  men 
as  well  as  boys  listening  to  his  serious  speeches  and 
discussions. 

This  training  which  he  was  giving  both  his  wits 
and  his  tongue  served  him  in  more  than  one  tight 
place  as  he  was  growing  to  manhood.  The  winter 
he  kept  the  ferry  at  Anderson's  Creek,  he  was  even 
able  to  make  a  successful  plea  in  his  own  defense 
when  brought  before  a  local  justice  of  the  peace  on 
a  serious  enough  charge.  It  happened  in  this  way: 

Two  farmers  kept  the  ferry  across  the  river  on 
the  Kentucky  side.  As  there  were  only  occasional 
travelers,  it  was  the  practice,  when  any  one  wanted 
to  cross  from  one  side  to  the  other,  to  ring  a  bell  for 
the  ferryman.  The  farmers  on  the  Kentucky  side 
were  busy  men  and  frequently  did  not  respond 
promptly.  Lincoln  fell  into  the  habit,  when  the  de 
lay  was  long,  of  pushing  out  from  his  side  of  the 
river  and  picking  up  the  traveler,  and,  of  course,  re 
ceiving  the  fee  for  carrying  him  over.  This  hap 
pened  so  often  that  the  Kentucky  ferrymen  began 


36  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

to  suspect  that  Lincoln  was  trying  to  steal  their 
trade  and  decided  to  trap  him.  One  day,  when  they 
had  not  answered  the  bell  and  he  had  finally  crossed, 
they  waylaid  him,  took  him  before  the  squire,  and 
made  their  charge. 

Lincoln  saw  at  once  that  the  case  was  serious. 
Unless  he  could  defend  himself  it  meant  a  jail  sen 
tence.  So,  when  the  squire  asked  him  for  his  de 
fense,  he  made  it  frankly  and  persuasively.  He  had 
had  no  idea,  he  claimed,  that  in  crossing  the  river  he 
was  doing  anything  but  a  favor  to  the  Kentucky 
ferrymen.  He  knew  that  they  were  busy  and  did  not 
like  to  leave  their  work.  He  knew  that  the  travelers 
ought  not  to  be  kept  waiting  overlong.  He  thought 
that  he  was  accommodating  every  one  concerned 
when  he  took  the  men  over. 

There  was  no  mistaking  his  honesty,  at  least  so 
the  squire  seems  to  have  thought.  Besides,  his  argu 
ment  was  so  clear  and  sound  that  the  squire  finally 
let  him  off.  Not  only  that,  the  squire  was  so  inter 
ested  in  the  young  man  that  he  had  a  long  talk  with 
him  and  invited  him  to  come  whenever  he  pleased 
to  the  trials  that  were  held  before  him. 

Abraham  was  quick  to  take  advantage  of  this  invi 
tation.  Nothing  went  on  in  southwestern  Indiana 
that  interested  him  so  much  as  the  scenes  in  the  local 
courts.  He  again  and  again  walked  to  Rockport, 
the  county  seat  of  Spencer  County,  nearly  twenty 
miles  from  his  home,  to  attend  court.  There  he 
became  acquainted  with  Judge  John  Pitcher,  whose 
curiosity  about  the  big,  roughly  dressed  lad  that  lis 
tened  so  intently  to  the  pleadings  of  the  lawyers  and 


He  Finds  His  Kingdom  37 

to  his  own  speeches,  was  so  strong  that  he  talked  with 
him  whenever  he  had  the  opportunity,  advised  him, 
and  loaned  him  books. 

Another  court  which  Lincoln  frequently  attended 
was  that  at  Boonville,  the  county  seat  of  Warwick 
County.  It  was  a  rather  long  hike,  nearly  fifteen 
miles,  and  Lincoln  made  it  usually  on  foot.  He  even 
once  went  barefoot  to  follow  a  murder  trial,  so  in 
terested  was  he. 

The  desire  to  understand  everything  so  clearly 
that  he  could  make  others  understand  it,  became 
more  and  more  a  passion  with  Lincoln  as  he  grew 
older,  and  led  him  to  something  very  important  in 
his  education,  and  that  was,  a  great  care  about  how 
he  said  things,  about  the  words  he  used,  and  the  sen 
tences  he  constructed.  He  found  that  if  his  listeners 
were  really  to  understand  his  arguments  he  must 
use  words  familiar  to  them,  generally  simple  words ; 
that  he  must  use  phrases  that  were  straightforward 
and  clear.  As  his  great  desire  was  to  think  clearly 
himself  and  have  others  understand  his  thoughts,  he 
became  very  particular,  turning  his  phrases  over  and 
over  until  they  were  as  intelligible  as  he  could  make 
them. 

He  discovered  that  one  way  to  interest,  as  well  as 
to  make  people  understand,  was  by  illustrations 
drawn  from  things  that  they  were  familiar  with,  so 
he  fell  into  the  habit  of  explaining  by  stories  drawn 
from  the  incidents  of  daily  life.  The  dog  gnawing 
and  pulling  at  a  root  all  day  long  in  order  to  get  at 
a  woodchuck  served  him  as  a  lesson  in  persistency; 
the  sleepy,  lazy  horse,  driven  to  action  by  the  bite 


38  Boy  Scoutsr  Life  of  Lincoln 

of  a  chin  fly,  served  him  as  an  illustration  of  the  way 
an  annoying  or  disheartening  thing  may  drive  one 
to  an  effort  which,  without  it,  he  would  not  make. 
Everything  in  the  world  about  him  was  full  of  mean 
ing.  It  was  not  only  that  he  saw  things,  but  that  he 
thought  out  their  meaning  and  after  he  had  thought 
it  out  he  explained  it  whenever  chance  came. 

It  was  natural  that  his  desire  to  express  himself 
so  that  he  could  convince  and  move  others  should 
lead  him  to  writing.  He  is  known  to  have  written  an 
essay  on  kindness  to  animals  and  another  on  the 
horrors  of  war,  subjects  that  not  only  appealed  to 
his  natural  kindly  instincts  but  which  were  often 
treated  in  the  school  readers  of  that  time.  When  he 
was  about  nineteen,  he  wrote  an  essay  on  the  Amer 
ican  Government  and  our  duty  to  preserve  the 
Union,  which  he  submitted  to  his  friend,  Judge 
Pitcher  of  Rockport.  Years  afterward  Judge 
Pitcher,  talking  about  this  essay,  declared  that  uthe 
world  could  not  beat  it." 

But  it  was  not  on  serious  topics  only  that  he  wrote. 
He  had  caught  the  trick  of  rhyming,  and  all  of  these 
early  years  used  it  freely. 

When  his  sister  Sarah  was  married  to  Aaron 
Grigsby — the  brother  of  that  William  Grigsby  with 
whom  he  had  had  the  dispute  over  the  ownership  of 
a  dog — Abraham  wrote  a  song  which  was  sung  at 
the  wedding  by  the  Lincoln  family.  It  was  the  story 
of  the  creation  of  Eve  from  Adam's  side,  and  ended 
with  lines  which,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  Sarah  Lincoln's 
new  husband  remembered: 


He  Finds  His  Kingdom  39 

"The  woman  was  not  taken 

From  Adam's  feet  we  see, 
So  he  must  not  abuse  her, 
The  meaning  seems  to  be. 

"The  woman  was  not  taken 

From  Adam's  head,  we  know, 
To  show  she  must  not  rule  him — 
'Tis  evidently  so. 

"The  woman  she  was  taken 

From  under  Adam's  arm, 
So  she  must  be  protected 
From  injuries  and  harm." 

Lincoln's  facility  in  rhyming  always  astonished  his 
friends.  There  was  nobody  else  in  the  country  so 
accomplished.  They  could  understand  his  strong 
arm  but  not  his  faculty  of  verse  making,  and  the 
community  was  more  impressed  when  it  was  discov 
ered  that  Lincoln  could  use  his  accomplishment  in 
ridiculing  those  who  had  slighted  or  wronged  him. 
The  feeling  of  the  Grigsbys  against  Abraham  was 
so  strong,  probably  because  of  the  fight  over  the  dog, 
that  they  did  not  invite  him  to  a  wedding  in  the 
family,  although  everybody  else  in  the  neighborhood 
was  there.  Abraham  took  his  revenge  in  verse,  writ 
ing  a  long  string  of  jingles  ridiculing  them.  It  was 
a  novel  kind  of  revenge  in  Gentryville  and  probably 
cut  deeper  because  of  that. 

Lincoln  had  discovered  a  dangerous  thing,  that  he 
could  hurt  people  by  satire  and  ridicule — dangerous, 
because  so  easily  abused.  A  blow  with  the  tongue 
or  pen  may  be  more  cruel  than  a  blow  with  the  fist. 


40  Boy  Scouts9  Life  of  Lincoln 

If  he  had  not  been  kind  at  heart,  given  to  measuring 
all  his  actions  by  his  idea  of  what  was  right  and  what 
was  wrong,  that  newly  discovered  power  might  have 
proved  later  a  cruel  weapon  in  his  hands. 

But  he  was  kind,  and  felt  about  his  skill  in  satire 
very  much  as  he  did  about  his  strength  of  body,  that 
it  was  something  that  should  not  be  used  wan 
tonly;  and  in  later  life  he  learned  to  use  it  only 
when  he  was  indignant  over  meanness  or  injus 
tice,  but  then  to  such  good  effect  that  there  was 
nothing  that  those  who  knew  him  dreaded  more.  In 
this  case  of  the  Grigsbys,  whatever  resentment  they 
may  have  felt  over  his  lampooning  was  forgotten, 
for,  years  later,  when  he  was  President  of  the  United 
States,  one  of  his  stanchest  supporters  in  southwest 
ern  Indiana  was  William  Grigsby. 

Perhaps  the  greatest  thing  that  he  learned  in  his 
hard  struggles  to  make  the  most  of  his  life  was  to 
suit  his  conduct  always  to  what  he  felt  to  be  right. 
He  did  not  believe  one  thing  and  do  another.  It 
could  not  have  been  easy  for  a  boy  who  was  so  strong 
and  supple  that  he  could  throw  anybody  that  he  had 
ever  met,  to  refuse  good-naturedly  to  fight  some 
quarrelsome  bully  whose  chief  ambition  was  to  have 
everybody  afraid  of  him.  Lincoln  could  afford  to 
laugh  at  such  boys.  He  knew  his  own  strength,  but 
he  believed  fighting  and  quarreling  to  be  contempt 
ible  and  wrong.  He  would  have  no  part  in  them, 
unless  he  was  literally  driven  to  it.  If,  as  happened 
occasionally,  a  gang  that  loved  fighting  for  its  own 
sake  attacked  him,  they  found,  to  their  shame,  that 
they  were  no  match.  There  seems  never  to  have 


He  Finds  His  Kingdom  41 

been  a  boy  in  the  community  that  he  could  not  pick 
up  and  throw  over  his  head;  or,  if  forced  to  hit,  he 
could  not  straighten  out  with  one  blow.  But  he  took 
no  pride  in  any  brutal  use  of  his  strength,  though  he 
used  it  freely  in  helping  others.  If  there  was  a  log 
or  a  timber  so  heavy  that  no  one  could  lift  it,  he 
would  shoulder  it.  He  loved  to  test  himself,  too, 
in  all  sorts  of  games,  for  he  took  pride  in  the  supple 
ness  as  well  as  in  the  strength  of  his  body. 

He  used  his  sense  of  what  was  right  and  wrong  as 
one  does  a  compass  in  the  woods,  to  point  his  way; 
and  he  would  no  more  be  false  to  that  sense  of  right 
and  wrong  than  the  traveler  would  to  his  compass. 
He  had  thought  it  all  out  and  he  had  come  to  see  that 
it  is  only  by  justice,  kindness,  honesty  of  mind  and 
heart  in  dealing  with  people  that  a  man  can  become 
useful  and  happy,  and,  as  for  himself,  his  mind  was 
made  up.  He  might  never  have  gone  to  school  but 
a  year  in  his  life,  never  had  books  or  clothes  like 
those  that  the  well-to-do  boy  even  in  that  part  of  the 
world  in  those  times  had,  he  might  have  to  depend 
upon  labor  with  his  hands  for  his  food  and  shelter; 
but  this  he  had  come  to  believe,  that  the  greatest 
things  in  the  world,  greater  than  wealth  or  honor, 
were  within  his  reach.  And  these  were,  to  be  loyal 
in  all  his  relations,  obedient  to  the  law,  cheerful 
whatever  his  hardships,  and  trustworthy  always. 

Lincoln's  steady,  determined  training  of  himself 
made  a  strong  impression  on  his  friends.  Many  of 
the  older  people  especially  watched  and  often  said 
to  one  another,  "He  will  make  his  mark,"  "He 
will  be  a  great  man  by  and  by." 


42  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

And,  indeed,  that  is  what  Lincoln  intended.  He 
was  ambitious  to  know  and  see  and  be  more  than 
those  about  him.  Everything  that  he  learned  showed 
him  that  there  were  men  in  the  world  who  did  great 
and  noble  things.  How  were  they  able  to  do  them? 
He  learned  that  they  had  to  labor  and  sacrifice  in 
order  to  be  what  they  were,  but  that  did  not  frighten 
him.  All  his  life  he  had  had  to  labor  and  sacrifice 
simply  to  get  food  and  clothes.  He  began  to  see 
that  the  difference  in  the  usefulness  and  in  the  powers 
of  men  comes  from  the  fact  that  some  of  them  so 
love  knowledge  and  so  desire  to  be  useful  that  they 
are  willing  to  make  great  efforts;  while  others  want 
everything  done  for  them;  and  he  saw  that  these 
men  who  want  everything  done  for  them  never  be 
came  useful  or  important. 

He  kept  at  his  work  of  learning,  understanding, 
and  telling  others  so  persistently  that  by  the  time  he 
was  twenty-one  years  old,  although  he  had  never 
been  in  school  more  than  a  year,  he  had  an  education 
which  no  college  or  university  alone  can  give ;  to  be 
sure,  the  college  or  university  may  make  it  much 
easier  to  learn  these  things,  but  they  cannot  do  the 
work  for  a  man,  he  must  do  it  for  himself.  If  a 
man  is  to  have  the  love  of  knowledge  he  must  culti 
vate  it.  If  he  is  to  have  an  eye  that  sees  everything 
that  goes  on  about  him,  he  must  train  it.  If  he  is 
to  have  the  power  to  think  through  a  hard  problem, 
he  must  acquire  it  by  continually  putting  his  mind 
to  hard  problems,  never  giving  up  anything  that 
puzzles  him  until  he  has  thought  it  through;  if  he 
is  to  be  able  to  explain  that  problem  to  others,  he 


He  Finds  His  Kingdom  43 

must  constantly  exercise  himself  in  explaining  clearly 
by  word  and  by  pen.  Above  all,  if  he  is  to  be  truth 
ful,  courageous,  clean*  cheerful,  reverent,  he  must 
watch  himself  constantly,  control  and  shape  his  im 
pulses,  training  his  heart  as  he  does  his  mind  and 
body. 

Lincoln  had  done  these  things.  By  the  time  he 
was  twenty-one  years  of  age,  he  had  learned  the 
things  that  are  most  important  in  education,  and  it 
was  now  time  for  him  to  start  out  for  himself.  He 
did  not  see  much  chance  of  going  further  in  Indiana, 
and  it  is  probable  that  he  would  have  left  home  of 
his  own  will  if  his  father  had  not  made  up  his  mind 
to  leave  Spencer  County.  He  had  not  prospered 
there  as  he  had  hoped,  and  that  old  malarial  trouble 
of  which  Nancy  Hanks  Lincoln  had  died  had  broken 
out  again. 

One  of  Abraham's  cousins,  John  Hanks,  had  gone 
to  Illinois,  and  had  come  back  with  wonderful  tales 
of  a  land  without  forests  to  be  cleared  and  of  a  soil 
that  was  so  rich  it  only  needed  scratching  to  yield 
a  crop.  He  proposed  to  go  there  and  settle.  The 
stories  stirred  all  of  the  pioneer  instinct  in  Tom  Lin 
coln,  and  he  decided  to  follow  John  Hanks,  so  the 
Lincolns  sold  their  land,  their  extra  stock,  and  prod 
uce,  and  in  March  of  1830,  just  a  month  after 
Lincoln  was  twenty-one,  they  started,  a  party  of 
thirteen,  on  a  journey  into  the  new  land. 

Everybody  was  sorry  to  see  them  go.  It  was  a 
hard  parting,  particularly  for  Abraham.  He  had 
lived  fourteen  years  in  this  valley,  from  the  time  he 
was  seven  until  he  was  twenty-one.  He  knew  every- 


44  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

body  within  many  miles  of  his  home,  and  he  was  on 
friendly  terms  with  everybody.  He  was  leaving  be 
hind  scores  of  friends,  the  grave  of  his  mother.  He 
knew  that  in  starting  out  for  himself — which,  once 
this  moving  was  over,  he  must  do — he  must  go 
among  strangers ;  but  it  was  a  new  adventure,  prom 
ising  him  the  chance  he  so  eagerly  awaited;  besides 
he  was  too  busy  with  the  work  of  the  journey  to 
have  time  to  brood. 

The  goods  of  the  family  had  been  packed  into  a 
big  wagon  and  Abraham  drove  the  oxen  which  pulled 
the  load,  a  task  that  required  skill  and  attention. 
The  roads,  poor  at  best,  were  terrible  at  this  season, 
half  frozen  in  some  places,  full  of  deep  holes  in 
others.  There  were  no  bridges  and  often  the  heavy 
wagon  broke  through  the  soft  ice  which  still  cov 
ered  the  streams.  Abraham  had  his  hands  full  all 
day  and  at  evening  when  they  camped  he  must  care 
for  his  oxen  and  help  with  the  horses,  for  most  of 
the  party,  including  Mrs.  Lincoln,  were  on  horse 
back,  each  rider  carrying  strapped  behind  a  great 
bundle  of  fodder. 

The  journey  led  them  through  two  good  sized 
towns — Vincennes  and  Palestine.  Lincoln  saw  on 
this  trip  his  first  printing  press  and  his  first  juggler. 
The  skill  of  the  latter  particularly  amazed  him. 
Here,  he  saw,  was  somebody  who  could  do  some 
thing  with  his  body  that  he  could  not  do.  He  never 
lost  his  interest  in  this  sort  of  skill,  and  always  at 
fairs,  in  later  life,  he  would  go  to  watch  the  strong 
men  throwing  balls  and  performing  other  feats  of 
jugglery. 


He  Finds  His  Kingdom  45 

Much  of  the  interest  of  the  trip  came  from  a  little 
business  venture  that  he  was  making  on  the  side. 
He  had  foreseen  that  there  was  a  chance  of  making 
a  little  extra  money,  so  he  went  to  his  friend,  Mr. 
Jones,  of  the  general  store,  and  asked  him  to  make 
up  a  pack  of  things  that  he  could  peddle  along  the 
way.  Needles,  pins,  thread,  calico,  buttons,  knives 
and  forks,  went  into  his  pack,  and  all  were  sold  on 
the  trip. 

It  took  two  weeks  for  the  Lincolns  to  reach  Macon 
County,  Illinois,  where  John  Hanks  had  already 
selected  a  piece  of  land  for  them.  This  land  lay 
about  ten  miles  west  of  Decatur,  the  county  seat, 
on  a  bluff  overlooking  the  Sangamon  River.  There 
were  acres  of  open  prairie  and  much  fine  timber — a 
really  beautiful  spot.  All  hands  fell  to  with  energy 
to  build  a  cabin,  and  this  done,  to  split  rails  for  a 
field.  Most  of  these  rails  were  split  by  Abraham 
himself,  and  thirty  years  later  some  of  them  were 
carried  in  political  parades  and  shown  in  political 
conventions. 

The  field  fenced,  the  ground  must  be  broken  and 
put  into  crops.  In  all  this  work  Lincoln  helped.  It 
was  true  he  was  now  of  age  and  had  the  right,  accord 
ing  to  law,  to  start  out  for  himself;  but  this  he  was 
unwilling  to  do  until  he  sa^w  his  father  established. 
That  done,  he  set  out  on  a  search  for  work,  his  ax 
over  his  shoulder,  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  a  free 
and  independent  man. 


CHAPTER  III 

STARTING  OUT  FOR  HIMSELF 

Get  work:  it  is  better  than  what  you  work  to  get. 

ROBERT  BROWNING. 

IF  you  had  seen  him  in  the  summer  of  1831,  when 
he  started  out  for  himself,  probably  the  last 
thing  you  would  have  believed  was  that  Abra 
ham  Lincoln  had  in  him  the  making  of  a  great  man. 
The  chances  are  that  you  would  have  looked  at  his 
clothes  instead  of  his  eyes,  have  judged  by  the  kind 
of  work  he  was  doing  instead  of  finding  out  what 
was  going  on  in  his  mind.  Certainly,  if  you  had 
seen  only  the  outside  you  would  not  have  picked  him 
out  as  a  future  leader  of  a  great  country.  And  yet, 
to  the  Boy  Scout,  with  his  trained  appreciation  of 
strength,  vigor,  and  suppleness,  he  would  have  been 
a  remarkable  figure. 

Lincoln  was  twenty-two  years  old,  almost  six  feet 
four  inches  in  height,  and  weighed  nearly  one  hun 
dred  and  eighty  pounds.  There  was  not  an  ounce 
of  extra  flesh  on  his  body,  nothing  but  hard,  sinewy 
muscle,  and  if  he  had  gripped  your  hand  you  would 
have  known  that  he  could  crush  it  if  he  wished. 
Carrying  his  great  frame  erect,  he  walked  with  long, 
elastic  strides,  arms  swinging.  When  sitting  he 
slouched — "sat  on  his  shoulder  blades,"  people  said; 

46 


Starting  Out  for  Himself  47 

when  reading  he  liked  to  lie  at  full  length  on  the  floor 
or  ground.  His  face  matched  his  body — a  thin  face, 
with  high  cheek  bones,  broad  forehead,  and  big  nose. 
There  was  a  curious  drop  at  one  side  of  his  lower 
lip  and  a  big  wart  on  his  right  cheek.  His  eyes  were 
gray  and  his  hair  heavy,  coarse,  and  black.  His  big 
body  was  clad  in  clothes  so  poor  and  ill  fitting  that 
they  attracted  attention  even  in  those  pioneer  days. 
Usually  they  were  made  of  what  was  called  jeans, 
a  cotton  mixture,  roughly  woven  at  home.  His 
trousers  were  nearly  always  too  short  and  his  coat 
hitched  up  in  the  back.  You  see,  if  you  are  given 
to  judging  people  by  their  clothes,  the  probability  is 
that  you  would  have  passed  by  this  future  President 
of  the  United  States. 

In  spite  of  appearance,  however,  from  the  time 
that  Abraham  Lincoln  began  to  work  on  his  own 
account,  it  was  on  the  educated  people,  the  big  men 
of  the  community,  that  he  made  the  deepest  impres 
sion.  He  amazed  them  by  his  knowledge,  his 
thoughtfulness,  his  clear  and  forceful  expression  of 
ideas.  They  were  surprised  at  his  interest  in  the 
affairs  of  the  countryside  and  his  sensible  way  of 
looking  at  them.  Almost  at  once  he  interested  him 
self  in  a  local  public  question. 

Lincoln  had  seen,  as  soon  as  he  arrived  in  Macon 
County,  that  the  great  need  of  the  settlers  was  better 
transportation — some  way  to  get  easily  to  the  big 
markets  of  the  world  with  their  produce.  Now, 
close  to  his  new  home  was  a  river,  the  Sangamon, 
which  about  one  hundred  and  fifty  miles  to  the  west 
joined  the  Illinois  River,  some  seventy  miles  from 


48  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

where  it  flowed  into  the  Mississippi.  But  it  was 
such  a  lawless,  zigzag  stream  and  so  blocked  by 
driftwood  and  snags  that  it  had  never  been  consid 
ered  navigable.  Lincoln  worked  near  this  river  for 
several  months  after  he  arrived  in  Illinois  and, 
trained  as  he  was  to  watch  and  think  about  his  sur 
roundings,  studied  its  ways  until  he  made  up  his 
mind  it  could  be  opened  and  that  to  do  this  was  the 
first  business  of  the  settler. 

One  day  as  he  and  his  cousin  John  Hanks  were 
at  work  with  others  in  the  fields,  a  candidate  for 
office  stopped  to  talk  to  them.  He  talked  on  the 
very  subject  Lincoln  had  been  thinking  about — the 
navigation  of  the  Sangamon.  When  he  had  finished, 
John  Hanks  declared  loudly  that  Lincoln  could  make 
a  better  speech  than  that.  "Let  him  do  it,"  the  boys 
shouted.  It  must  have  been  a  surprise  to  them  when, 
without  hesitation,  Abraham  bounded  to  his  feet  and 
made  a  speech  which  the  candidate  himself  admitted 
to  be  better  than  his.  He  knew  enough  of  speech- 
making  to  understand  that  was  not  the  first  time  the 
big  rail  splitter  had  talked  on  his  feet. 

"Where  did  you  learn  that?"  he  asked  him.  Abra 
ham  told  him  modestly  enough  how  he  had  read  and 
tried  to  make  all  he  read  clear  to  himself  and  others 
by  speaking  when  he  could  find  listeners.  "Keep 
on,"  the  man  told  him,  "you'll  make  your  mark  some 
day." 

It  was  the  Sangamon  River  that  gave  him  his  first 
chance  and  soon  after  it  gave  him  a  second  when 
he  and  his  half  brother  and  his  cousin  were  hired 
to  pilot  a  flatboat  with  a  load  of  produce  from  near 


Starting  Out  for  Himself  49 

Springfield  to  New  Orleans.  It  was  a  chance  to 
prove  that  he  was  right  in  the  things  that  he  had 
been  saying  about  the  navigation  of  the  river. 

Early  in  183 1  the  three  young  men  went  to  Spring 
field  where  they  were  to  meet  their  employer.  But 
they  found  he  had  not  kept  his  agreement  to  have  a 
boat  ready  and  loaded  for  them,  and  that  if  they 
were  to  make  the  trip,  they  must  build  the  boat 
themselves. 

It  was  work  with  which  all  three  were  familiar, 
and  soon  they  were  busy  getting  out  the  timber. 
There  were  no  lumber  yards  to  draw  upon,  but  there 
was  plenty  of  government  land  with  timber  for  the 
asking.  Going  into  the  woods  they  built  a  camp 
and  set  about  their  task.  The  camp  was  near  a  set 
tlement  known  as  Sangamon  town,  and  it  was  not 
many  days  before  the  inhabitants  were  telling  one 
another  that  there  was  a  big  fellow  down  in  the  new 
camp  who  was  a  wonderful  story-teller.  It  soon 
became  the  habit  at  noontime  and  in  the  evening  for 
all  the  menfolks  around  to  drift  into  Abraham's 
camp  to  listen  to  him  talk.  Their  favorite  seat  was 
a  long  log,  off  which  the  men,  convulsed  with 
laughter,  rolled  so  often  that  they  soon  had  it  pol 
ished.  It  was  long  known  in  Sangamon  town  as 
"Abe's  log." 

The  boat  was  finished  early  in  April  and  safely 
launched;  but  it  did  not  get  off  without  an  exciting 
accident  in  which  Lincoln's  coolness  and  courage  in 
danger  came  out  strongly. 

A  log  canoe  or  dugout  had  been  made  for  use  with 
the  flatboat  and  two  men  who  had  been  helping  the 


50  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

party  attempted  to  launch  it.  The  river  was  high, 
overflowing  its  banks,  and  they  were  careless. 
Hardly  was  the  dugout  in  the  water  before  over  it 
went,  throwing  them  into  the  cold,  rushing  stream. 
They  were  swept  rapidly  away  by  the  swift  current, 
but  finally  succeeded  in  reaching  the  branches  of  a 
half-submerged  tree  in  midstream. 

How  to  rescue  the  two  men,  perched  up  above  the 
roaring  river,  was  a  problem.  Lincoln  took  the 
matter  promptly  in  hand.  Seizing  the  heavy  ropes 
on  the  flatboat,  he  called  on  the  whole  party  to  help 
attach  them  to  a  big  log,  and  shove  it  into  the  stream. 
A  daring  fellow  was  selected  to  guide  it  to  the  tree 
in  which  the  men  were  perched.  He  did  so,  but, 
excited  with  his  success,  sprang  up  too  quickly  and 
was  thrown  into  the  water,  losing  the  log  and  only 
barely  reaching  the  tree,  to  which  now  three  half- 
frozen,  frightened  men  were  clinging. 

A  second  log  was  secured  and  the  maneuver  re 
peated,  but  Lincoln  himself  directed  the  life  boat  this 
time.  He  was  able  to  bring  it  so  near  the  tree  that 
he  could  throw  a  line  about  the  trunk  and  hold  it 
secure  until  the  prisoners  had  climbed  down  and 
seated  themselves.  Then,  freeing  his  craft,  he  or 
dered  it  pulled  slowly  to  shore. 

By  this  time  the  whole  countryside  was  on  the 
banks  watching  the  rescue,  and  when  a  short  time 
afterward  Lincoln  and  his  friends  floated  away  from 
Sangamon  town,  he  went  with  a  reputation  not  only 
as  the  best  story-teller  that  had  ever  been  in  those 
parts,  but  as  a  fearless  and  resourceful  hero. 

Thirty  miles  or  so  down  the  river,  the  flatboat 


Starting  Out  for  Himself  51 

and  its  crew  met  with  a  second  mishap  in  which  Lin 
coln  was  again  the  central  figure.  In  an  attempt  to 
go  over  a  milldam  at  the  town  of  New  Salem  the 
boat  hung,  bow  in  air.  The  boxes  and  hogsheads 
began  settling  into  the  stern  and  water  flowing  in.  It 
looked  like  a  shipwreck  and  the  whole  neighborhood 
gathered  to  shout  directions  and  warnings.  Lincoln 
paid  little  attention  to  his  audience,  but  quickly  began 
unloading  and  shifting  cargo.  Part  of  it  was  sent 
ashore  in  the  dugout,  and  the  rest  was  carried  for 
ward  until  gradually  the  weight  began  to  raise  the 
stern.  When  the  angle  was  changed  he  bored  a 
hole  in  the  bottom  of  the  boat,  letting  out  the  water 
which  had  run  in  and  was  soon  able  to  push  the  craft 
over.  "A  mighty  smart  chap,"  declared  the  people 
in  New  Salem,  who  had  been  watching  operations. 
From  the  Sangamon  they  floated  into  the  Illinois 
River  and  from  the  Illinois  into  the  Mississippi  and 
on  down  to  New  Orleans.  Although  Lincoln  had 
made  the  trip  at  least  twice  before  he  was  now  much 
better  prepared  to  benefit  by  what  he  saw  and  heard. 
The  month  he  spent  in  New  Orleans  was  one  of  the 
richest  so  far  in  his  life.  In  1831  the  city  was  filled 
with  people  from  all  parts  of  the  world,  but  particu 
larly  from  France  and  Spain.  There  were  many 
Creoles  and  Indians.  Besides,  there  was  a  commu 
nity  of  pirates  and  filibusters,  fresh  from  wild  and 
often  wicked  adventures  and  preparing  for  new  ones. 
Along  with  these  were  hundreds  of  rivermen  from 
the  full  length  of  the  Mississippi.  It  was  said  that 
one  could  walk  a  mile  in  those  days  over  the  tops  of 
the  flatboats  tied  up  along  the  wharves  in  New  Or- 


52  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

leans.  Lincoln  lived  among  these  rough  men,  heard 
their  tales,  and  learned  their  ways. 

Nothing  in  the  brilliant  life  of  the  city  interested 
him  so  much  as  the  slave  market.  It  was  the  first 
time  he  had  seen  men  and  women  put  upon  the  auc 
tion  block  as  he  had  been  accustomed  to  seeing 
horses  and  cows  and  hogs.  The  separation  of  moth 
ers  and  children,  husbands  and  wives,  brothers  and 
sisters  filled  him  with  angry  amazement.  From  the 
time  that  he  was  seven  years  old  he  had  lived  in  free 
states.  Slavery  was  only  a  name  to  him.  He  had 
been  taught  by  his  father  and  many  of  his  friends 
to  regard  it  as  wrong,  but  he  had  all  his  life  heard 
men  for  whom  he  felt  respect  uphold  it  as  a  neces 
sary  institution.  What  he  saw  in  the  slave  market, 
the  most  terrible  and  inhuman  part  of  slavery — but 
a  necessary  part  if  men  and  women  were  to  be  con 
sidered  as  property  which  could  be  bought  and  sold 
— filled  his  mind.  He  could  not  think  or  talk  about 
anything  else.  "If  ever  I  get  a  chance  to  hit  that 
thing,"  he  told  his  cousin,  "I'll  hit  it  hard." 

After  the  month  in  New  Orleans,  the  travelers 
came  back  by  steamer  to  Illinois.  Their  employer, 
a  venturesome,  boastful  trader,  who  was  looking  for 
a  chance  to  establish  himself  permanently  in  Illinois, 
had  decided  to  open  a  store  in  New  Salem.  He 
had  been  so  pleased  with  what  he  had  seen  of  Lin 
coln  that  he  asked  him  to  take  charge  of  this  store; 
and  so,  in  the  summer  of  1832,  Lincoln  returned  to 
the  town  where  more  than  one  citizen  recognized  him 
as  the  resourceful  and  cool  fellow  who,  a  few  months 


Starting  Out  for  Himself  53 

before,  had  saved  a  flatboat  and  its  cargo  from  sink 
ing  in  the  Sangamon. 

But  New  Salem  quickly  discovered  that  Lincoln 
was  as  able  in  many  other  ways  as  he  had  been  in 
saving  his  boat.  He  surprised  them  both  by  the 
variety  of  things  he  could  do  and  by  the  kindliness 
and  zest  with  which  he  did  them.  Just  after  his 
arrival  an  election  was  held  in  the  town  and  the  clerk 
in  charge — the  schoolmaster,  Mentor  Graham, 
needed  an  assistant.  When  anything  unusual  was 
going  on,  particularly  anything  that  brought  men 
together,  Lincoln  was  sure  to  be  on  hand.  Mentor 
Graham,  seeing  him  in  the  crowd,  asked  him  if  he 
could  write.  "I  can  make  a  few  rabbit  tracks,"  he 
answered.  It  would  not  have  been  surprising  if 
Graham  had  been  a  little  doubtful  about  his  capacity, 
but  he  tried  him  out,  and  immediately  saw  that  here, 
in  spite  of  his  queer  looks,,  was  a  young  man  who 
knew  his  business.  He  made  the  entries  correctly 
and  promptly  and  asked  such  intelligent  questions 
and  made  such  shrewd  comments  that  the  school 
master  was  greatly  taken  with  him.  When  things 
were  a  little  dull  he  enlivened  the  crowd  by  telling 
stories.  Before  night,  all  New  Salem  was  telling 
about  the  stranger  who  had  dropped  in,  made  such 
a  good  clerk,  and  illustrated  his  talk  by  the  most 
amusing  and  striking  stories  that  they  had  heard 
in  many  a  day. 

By  the  time  the  store  was  open  he  had  won  the 
good  will  and  respect  of  the  best  people  in  New 
Salem;  soon  after  he  won  over  the  roughest  part 


'54  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

ot  the  community,  a  wild  and  lawless  gang  known 
as  the  Clary's  Grove  Boys — a  name  given  them  from 
their  meeting  place  in  a  grove  near  the  town.  One 
of  the  ambitions  of  this  gang  was  to  include  in  its 
membership  the  strongest  wrestlers  and  hardest 
fighters  in  the  country.  Their  champion  at  this  time 
was  Jack  Armstrong,  whom  they  boldly  declared  to 
be  as  strong  as  an  ox  and  able  to  lick  anybody  alive. 

Lincoln's  employer,  hearing  these  boasts  and 
proud  of  his  clerk's  strength  and  skill,  retorted  that 
Lincoln  could  lift  more,  run  faster,  jump  higher, 
wrestle  better  than  any  man  in  Sangamon  County. 
Of  course,  the  Clary's  Grove  Boys  would  not  let  that 
pass,  and  they  ordered  Armstrong  uto  throw  Lin 
coln."  Abraham  did  not  like  these  wrestling 
matches.  There  was  too  much  "wooling  and  pull 
ing"  about  them,  he  said.  But  it  was  an  open 
challenge  with  the  promise  of  fair  play,  so  he  con 
sented.  There  was  great  excitement  over  the  match, 
the  community  generally  expecting  Armstrong  to 
make  short  work  of  the  new  man.  But  almost  at 
once  everybody  saw  that  the  champion  had  met  his 
match.  He  could  not  throw  Lincoln.  Realizing 
this,  after  a  long  struggle,  he  tried  a  "foul." 

Lincoln  had  wrestled  in  good  humor  to  this  point, 
but  when  he  realized  what  Armstrong  was  doing  he 
was  furious.  Seizing  him  by  the  throat  he  held  him 
at  arm's  length,  shaking  him  as  a  dog  might  a  rat. 
The  gang,  seeing  their  champion  in  this  inglorious 
predicament,  rushed  to  his  assistance.  For  a  few 
minutes  it  looked  as  if  Lincoln  would  be  downed 
by  numbers,  but  he  held  them  off  until,  amazed  at 


Starting  Out  for  Himself  55 

his  strength  and  skill,  they  fell  back  in  admiration, 
and  Armstrong,  ashamed  of  his  trickery,  loudly 
declared  that  Lincoln  was  the  best  man  that  had 
ever  broken  into  camp. 

Lincoln's  place  was  now  secure  with  the  young  of 
the  countryside.  He  was  their  chosen  umpire  in  all 
sports  and  they  heeded  his  warning^  and  took 
his  advice  when  nobody  else  could  influence  them. 
When  fall  came  and  the  regular  muster  of  the  militia 
for  the  drilling  required  by  law  was  made,  it  was 
the  young  men  that  chose  Lincoln  for  captain,  just 
as  their  elders  chose  him  for  clerk  of  elections  and 
referee  in  town  matters. 

This  popularity  with  all  classes  encouraged  Lin 
coln  to  think  that  his  ambition  to  take  an  active  part 
in  public  affairs  might  not  be  hopeless,  after  all. 
Dare  he  offer  himself  as  a  candidate  for  office?  By 
this  time  he  had  become  so  intimate  with  Mentor 
Graham,  the  schoolmaster,  that  he  told  him  of  his 
ambition.  The  schoolmaster  understood,  as  Lincoln 
did  not,  that,  intelligent  and  thoughtful  as  he  was, 
his  lack  of  systematic  schooling  would  be  a  serious 
handicap  to  him  if  he  went  into  public  life.  "For 
one  thing  you  must  learn  not  only  to  speak  well  and 
fluently  but  speak  correctly,"  he  told  him.  "That 
is,  you  must  know  more  than  you  do  about  the  sci 
ence  of  grammar." 

"I  can  learn  it,  can't  I?"  said  Lincoln. 

"Yes,"  said  the  schoolmaster,  "and  I  will  help 
you." 

So  far  as  Abraham  could  find  out,  there  was  at 
that  time  but  one  grammar  to  be  borrowed  in  the 


56  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

whole  countryside,  and  that  was  some  miles  away. 
He  did  not  wait,  but  started  at  once  for  the  book; 
and  for  weeks  after  that  he  could  be  seen  in  every 
spare  hour,  working  over  the  principles  and  trying 
to  apply  them.  He  did  a  good  piece  of  work.  There 
were  only  two  slips  which  Lincoln  in  later  life  was 
wont  to  make  and  these  many  educated  people  make. 
One  was  to  split  his  infinitives,  and  the  other  was 
to  confuse  "shall"  and  "will." 

He  learned  something  by  this  mastery  of  gram 
mar  which  he  seems  not  to  have  fully  realized  be 
fore,  and  that  is  that  men  arrange  the  knowledge 
they  collect  of  a  particular  subject  and  the  principles 
governing  this  knowledge  which  they  work  out  into 
what  is  called  a  science,  and  that  in  order  to  get  a 
solid  basis  for  work  in  the  world  it  is  necessary  to 
master  at  least  the  outlines  of  the  essential  sciences, 
that  these  are  the  foundations  of  an  education  and 
that  it  is  through  the  schools  that  men  have  agreed  to 
teach  the  elements  of  the  necessary  sciences.  Lin 
coln  saw  that  heretofore  he  had  been  reading  and 
studying  without  plan  and  although  he  had  taught 
himself  to  think  out  and  express  problems  clearly, 
he  had  little  systematic  knowledge. 

"If  that's  a  science,"  he  said  when  he  had  finished 
with  grammar,  "I  guess  I'll  try  another." 

While  he  was  working  on  his  grammar  he  de 
cided  to  prepare  an  address  to  the  people  of  the 
district,  announcing  himself  as  a  candidate  for  the 
State  legislature.  You  see,  he  did  not  intend  to  lose 
any  time  in  letting  people  know  what  his  ambitions 
were.  He  did  not  intend  that  lack  of  money,  school- 


Starting  Out  for  Himself  57 

ing,  or  clothes  should  stand  in  his  way.  He  went 
straight  after  the  thing  that  he  wanted,  and  in 
March,  1832,  only  one  year  after  he  came  into  the 
State,  and  when  he  was  only  twenty-three  years  old, 
he  put  out  his  announcement;  but  hardly  was  his 
bid  for  votes  out  before  his  and  everybody's  mind 
was  turned  from  politics  to  war — an  Indian  war. 

One  morning  in  April,  a  rider  dashed  through  the 
streets  of  New  Salem,  scattering  handbills  signed 
by  the  governor,  calling  for  volunteers  to  repel  an 
invasion  by  the  Sac  Indians,  led  by  a  chief  whose 
name  was  familiar  to  every  Illinois  settler,  Black 
Hawk.  The  Sacs  had  once  owned  the  northern  por 
tion  of  Illinois,  but  in  1804  had  sold  it  to  the  United 
States,  and  moved  west  of  the  Mississippi,  with 
the  understanding  that  they  could  hunt  and  plant 
corn  in  Illinois  until  it  was  settled.  The  whites  had 
not  kept  faith  with  the  Indians,  squatters  in  large 
numbers  taking  possession  of  land  still  unsurveyed. 
The  Indians  had  resisted  and  there  had  been  much 
bitterness  and  violence  from  both  White  and  Red. 
Finally,  in  the  spring  of  1832,  Black  Hawk  decided 
to  invade  the  State.  He  had  been  persuaded  by 
agitators  that  if  he  would  attack,  other  Indian  tribes 
would  join  him  and  that  the  British  would  send  him 
powder  and  rifles;  there  was  no  chance  of  either  of 
these  things  happening. 

As  soon  as  Black  Hawk  and  his  braves  appeared 
along  the  Rock  River,  the  governor  called  for  vol 
unteers  from  the  State  to  help  the  soldiers  of  the 
regular  army  stationed  at  Fort  Armstrong  (Rock 
Island  in  the  Mississippi)  to  drive  him  back.  There 


58  Boy  Scouts9  Life  of  Lincoln 

were  few  slackers  among  the  younger  men  when 
this  call  came  to  New  Salem,  one  of  the  first  to  enlist 
being  Lincoln.  Each  company  chose  its  own  cap 
tain,  and  to  Lincoln's  surprise  and  delight,  he  was 
elected.  He  often  said,  in  talking  about  his  life, 
that  nothing  that  had  ever  happened  to  him  pleased 
him  more  than  this  honor. 

Undoubtedly  it  was  because  of  the  liking  that  the 
men  had  for  him  that  they  chose  him,  for  probably 
no  man  in  New  Salem  knew  less  about  military  mat 
ters  than  he  did.  He  did  not  know  how  to  give 
orders.  Nor  did  he  know  the  regulations  necessary 
for  the  discipline  of  a  camp.  During  the  march, 
on  which  they  immediately  started,  he  constantly 
got  into  trouble  through  his  ignorance.  In  later  life 
he  used  frequently  to  tell  with  great  enjoyment  of 
his  own  awkwardness  and  mistakes.  Once  when  the 
company  was  marching  twenty  abreast,  they  came 
up  against  a  fence  in  which  there  was  a  gate.  Lin 
coln,  at  his  wits'  end  as  to  the  proper  order,  called 
out:  "This  company  is  dismissed  for  two  minutes, 
when  it  will  fall  in  again  on  the  other  side  of  the 
gate." 

Because  of  his  good-humored  tolerance  with  his 
company  and  their  propensity  for  mischief  and 
carousing,  he  had  to  suffer  much  military  humiliation 
and  once,  not  at  all  for  his  own  fault,  but  for  shield 
ing  his  men,  he  wore  a  wooden  sword  for  two  days. 

Black  Hawk  was  followed  north  for  a  month 
without  an  encounter.  By  this  time  the  volunteers 
were  pretty  well  tired  of  the  long  marches,  poor 


Starting  Out  for  Himself  59 

food,  and  poor  shelter.  Most  of  them  refused  to  go 
on  and  finally  the  governor  mustered  them  all  out 
and  arranged  for  a  new  levy.  This  broke  up  Lin 
coln's  company.  He  did  not  go  home,  however,  but 
reenlisted  as  a  private  in  a  company  of  mounted 
independent  rangers,  whose  duty  it  was  to  carry  mes 
sages  and  spy  on  the  enemy.  After  a  month  of  this 
work  these  rangers  were  mustered  out  and  Lincoln 
enlisted  a  third  time  in  an  independent  company  and 
here  he  remained  until  the  end  of  the  war  in  July. 

He  saw  no  fighting  through  the  three  months — 
saw  no  hostile  Indians  except  a  few  dead  ones  that 
he  helped  bury.  But  if  there  were  no  battles,  there 
was  much  real  hardship,  for  the  food  was  scanty  and 
poor,  the  marches  long  and  difficult,  often  through 
forests  and  swamps,  and  the  ground  offered  the  only 
beds.  The  return  to  New  Salem,  after  he  was  finally 
mustered  out  at  Whitewater  in  Wisconsin,  was  espe 
cially  hard,  for  his  horse  had  been  stolen  and  he  was 
obliged  to  "foot  it"  save  when  a  friendly  comrade 
gave  him  a  lift  or  when  he  could  get  a  canoe  and 
paddle  down  a  stream  flowing  in  the  direction  that 
he  was  going. 

If  his  service  in  the  Black  Hawk  War  brought 
Lincoln  no  glory  as  a  soldier  it  was  the  finest  oppor 
tunity  he  had  yet  had  for  making  the  acquaintance 
of  numbers  of  men  and  of  studying  the  needs  and 
the  conditions  of  Illinois.  He  met,  in  the  three 
months  of  campaigning  and  marching,  scores  of 
men  with  whom  he  was  later  to  work  in  the  law 
and  in  politics.  His  experience  taught  him,  too,  how 


60  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

right  he  had  been  in  thinking  that  the  greatest  need 
of  Illinois  at  that  time  was  better  transportation. 
He  still  believed  the  way  to  get  this  was  by  improving 
the  rivers  and  he  came  back  to  New  Salem  more 
confident  than  ever  that  the  navigation  of  the  Sanga- 
mon  River  was  the  issue  on  which  to  make  his  cam 
paign,  for  the  war  had  by  no  means  killed  his  polit 
ical  ambition.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  knew  that 
he  was  stronger  than  ever  with  the  men  of  his  county, 
and  when  he  reached  New  Salem  he  picked  up  his 
campaigning  where  he  had  dropped  it,  using  the  very 
handbills  which  he  had  had  ready  when  the  call  to 
volunteer  came. 

His  campaigning  had  none  of  the  formality  of 
that  of  to-day.  Candidates  traveled  from  settle 
ment  to  settlement,  on  foot  or  a-horseback,  often  in 
groups,  picking  up  an  audience  wherever  they  could 
find  men  and  spending  much  time  by  .the  wayside, 
at  the  stores,  or  in  taverns  discussing  the  questions 
of  the  day.  Every  man  felt  that  politics  was  part 
of  his  business  and  that  he  must  understand  it  if  he 
was  to  vote  right;  consequently  he  took  every  op 
portunity  to  hear  and  to  question.  Speakers  ex 
pected  to  be  interrupted  by  their  hearers  and  a  great 
deal  of  their  success  depended  upon  the  good  humor, 
the  frankness,  and  the  information  they  put  into 
their  answers.  If  a  speaker  resented  a  question,  it 
was  generally  concluded  he  was  caught  or  consid 
ered  himself  superior  to  his  hearers.  Lincoln  liked 
his  audiences  too  well  to  treat  their  interruptions 
contemptuously;  besides  he  was  so  interested  in  what 
he  was  talking  about  and  was  always  so  anxious  to 


Starting  Out  for  Himself 


61 


Data  does  not  exist  for 
determining      positively      *J. 
the  route  Lincoln  followed 
in  the  Black  Hawk   War. 
JT  Only  thegeneraldtrectionof 
the  marches  of  his  company 
are  indicated  here.     In  poln{r 
from  Ottawa  to  Galenaand  back 
Captain  lies  may  hare  very  well 
marched  his  company  through 
Dlzon's  Ferry.    In  returning  from 
Whitewater  to  New  Salem,  Lincoln 
may  have  followed  the  river  to  Dizon 
There  were  undoubtedly  several  ald» 
marches  such  aa  that  on  June  85,  from 
Dizon  to  Kellogg'a  Grove  and  back, 
which  are  not  shown  In  this  map. 


Starting  Out  for  Himself  63 

get  new  light  that  he  regarded  questions  as  a  help 
rather  than  a  hindrance. 

He  frequently  found  other  duties  at  public  meet 
ings  than  speaking  and  answering  questions.  He 
had  to  keep  the  crowd  in  order.  A  regular  feature 
of  most  of  the  political  gatherings  seems  to  have 
been  a  fight  on  the  outskirts.  Lincoln  did  not  hesi 
tate  to  come  down  from  his  platform  when  inter 
rupted  by  a  scrap  and  in  his  own  way  restore  order. 
Noticing  that  one  of  his  friends  was  getting  the 
worst  of  it  in  a  general  fight  which  broke  out  at 
one  of  his  meetings,  he  jumped  from  the  platform, 
pushed  his  way  through  the  crowd,  and,  seizing  the 
bully  who  had  started  the  row  by  the  seat  of  his 
trousers,  "threw  him" — so  those  who  saw  it  always 
insisted — "twelve  feet  away."  Returning  to  the 
stand  he  went  on  with  his  speech. 

There  was  no  doubt  but  that  the  people  liked 
his  speeches.  He  spent  most  of  his  time  arguing 
that  the  Sangamon  should  be  opened  and  he  showed 
them  how  it  could  be  done.  They  saw  that  he  had 
studied  the  river,  knew  how  it  acted  at  different 
seasons,  where  its  length  could  be  shortened,  its 
channel  cleared.  Here  was  a  young  man  who  kept 
his  eyes  open,  they  said,  and  who  studied  not  only 
what  was  in  printed  books  but  in  the  greatest  of 
books,  the  life  and  country  around  him.  Then  they 
liked  the  modesty  of  his  speeches.  "Upon  the  sub 
jects  I  have  treated,"  he  told  them,  "I  have  spoken 
as  I  have  thought.  I  may  be  wrong  in  regard  to  any 
or  all  of  them,  but  as  soon  as  I  discover  my  opin 
ions  to  be  erroneous,  I  shall  be  ready  to  renounce 


64  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

them."  "Knows  he  can  learn,"  they  told  one  an 
other,  "and  means  to  do  it.  Isn't  afraid  to  change 
if  he  finds  he's  wrong.  He'll  make  his  mark  yet." 

How  strong  he  made  himself  in  Sangamon 
County  was  shown  when  the  elections  came,  for,  al 
though  there  were  eight  candidates  in  the  field,  he 
stood  third  on  the  list.  In  New  Salem  he  received 
227  of  the  300  votes  cast.  Who  would  dream,  to 
have  seen  him  starting  out  from  his  father's  log 
cabin  in  Macon  County  in  the  spring  of  1831,  in 
his  jean  trousers,  his  ax  over  his  shoulder,  that  in 
two  years  he  would  receive  over  two  thirds  of  the 
vote  cast  in  the  town  in  which  he  settled,  for  a  posi 
tion  so  important  as  that  of  member  of  the  Illinois 
Assembly. 

The  election,  even  if  called  a  defeat,  was  a  vic 
tory.  He  had  made  himself  a  place  among  men 
in  his  community.  He  knew  it  well.  That  was 
the  thing  he  had  been  working  for.  He  was  far 
from  discouraged.  Two  years  from  now  there 
would  be  another  election  and  he  meant  to  win  that 
time. 

But  now  he  must  have  work.  Storekeeping,  he 
had  learned  when  he  was  clerking,  just  about  sat 
isfied  him,  and  as  there  was  a  grocery  for  sale  in 
New  Salem,  he  and  an  acquaintance,  William  Berry 
— a  fellow  not  too  fond  of  work,  it  must  be  ac 
knowledged — decided  to  buy  the  store,  giving  their 
notes  in  exchange.  And  so,  late  in  1832,  we  find 
the  firm  of  Lincoln  &  Berry  in  business  in  New 
Salem. 

Hardly  had  they  opened  their  door  before  two 


Starting  Out  for  Himself  65 

other  groceries  in  New  Salem  were  forced  to  sell. 
Lincoln  and  Berry,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  they  had 
no  money,  bought  the  stocks.  It  was  high  finance ! 
Two  penniless  youths  buying  up  three  stores  and 
doing  it  entirely  on  credit.  Not  a  cent  of  money  had 
passed  hands  in  the  consolidation. 

What  pleased  Lincoln  about  the  undertaking  was 
that  he  now  had  ample  time  to  read.  Customers 
usually  found  him  lying  on  the  counter,  his  feet 
propped  up  against  a  pile  of  groceries  or  calico, 
reading  anything  he  could  get  his  hands  on. 

But  even  if  he  was  an  unbusinesslike  storekeeper, 
there  probably  never  was  a  more  popular  one.  His 
store,  as  that  of  his  friend  Jones  in  Gentyrville,  be 
came  the  meeting  place  of  the  men  from  the  town 
and  the  county  in  their  leisure  hours,  a  place  to  dis 
cuss  politics,  neighborhood  affairs,  listen  to  stories. 
Liking  for  him  grew  steadily  and  as  people  knew 
him  better  they  began  to  comment  more  and  more 
on  his  scrupulous  honesty.  A  woman  told  how  one 
evening  he  weighed  her  out  a  half  pound  of  tea,  and 
the  next  morning  when  he  came  in  discovered  on  his 
scales  a  four-ounce  weight.  He  realized  at  once 
that  in  the  darkness  he  had  made  a  mistake  and 
without  waiting  hurried  off  and  delivered  the  balance 
of  the  half  pound.  Another  customer  told  how  he 
walked  three  miles  once,  after  the  store  was  closed, 
to  return  an  overcharge  of  six  and  a  quarter  cents. 

And  as  for  his  kindness,  it  was  not  long  before 
in  New  Salem,  as  back  in  Gentryville,  he  had  made 
a  reputation  for  helping  everybody  that  was  in 
trouble.  You  could  always  count  on  him.  He 


66  Boy  Scouts9  Life  of  Lincoln 

boarded  in  the  little  country  tavern,  but  more  than 
once  when  there  were  too  many  travelers  for  the 
beds,  Lincoln  cheerfully  gave  up  his  and  slept  on 
the  counter  in  his  store.  More  than  one  traveler 
who  had  broken  down  or  stuck  in  the  mud  in  the  one 
poor  street  of  New  Salem  had  a  tale  to  tell  of  a 
storekeeper  of  wonderful  strength  who  lifted  the 
wagon  out  or  mended  the  broken  parts. 

It  was  through  his  willingness  to  do  a  good  turn 
to  a  traveler  that  this  year  of  storekeeping  brought 
him  the  most  valuable  books  he  had  ever  owned, 
books  he  was  fully  able  to  appreciate  and  use.  One, 
day  a  man  drove  up,  who  was  moving  his  family 
and  household  goods  westward  and  had  overloaded. 
He  asked  Lincoln  if  he  would  not  buy  a  barrel  of 
plunder  for  which  he  had  no  room.  Lincoln  good- 
naturedly  consented,  and,  paying  for  the  barrel,  put 
it  away  without  knowing  what  was  in  it.  Some  time 
afterward  he  dumped  the  contents  on  the  floor  and 
was  amazed  to  find  in  the  collection  a  complete  set 
of  Blackstone's  Commentaries.  No  possession 
could  have  been  more  precious  to  him  at  the  mo 
ment;  and  he  set  himself  to  the  reading  of  these  vol 
umes,  which  he  always  considered  the  basis  of  legal 
learning,  with  a  determination  to  master  them.  Men 
seeing  him  stretched  under  the  tree  in  front  of  Lin 
coln  &  Berry's  store,  or  lying  on  his  counter,  would 
ask  what  he  was  reading.  "Reading?"  he  would 
say,  "I  am  studying — studying  law."  And  more 
than  one  who  received  this  answer  went  away,  shak 
ing  his  head  over  Lincoln's  way  of  keeping  store. 

It  was  not  long  before  the  community,  seeing  his 


Starting  Out  for  Himself  67 

interest  in  the  law,  began  to  ask  services  of  him. 
The  justices  of  the  peace  would  call  on  him  to  dis 
cuss  a  point  or  to  examine  the  papers  they  had  made 
out.  Lincoln  was  quick  to  see  that  here  was  a  chance 
for  him,  so  he  began  to  study  how  to  make  out  wills, 
contracts,  deeds — all  of  the  various  legal  instru 
ments  by  which  men  carry  on  their  business.  It  was 
not  long  before  he  was  doing  this  work  for  many 
of  his  friends,  sometimes  with  fees,  oftener  with 
out. 

If  Lincoln's  partner,  William  Berry,  had  been 
industrious  and  honest,  he  might  have  made  up  for 
what  Lincoln  lacked  as  a  storekeeper;  but  he  was 
neither.  He  was  a  shiftless  fellow,  drinking  more 
than  was  good  for  him,  and  in  six  months'  time 
the  firm  was  forced  to  sell.  They  sold  to  men  who 
were  no  more  sensible  than  they  in  business,  and 
who  not  only  failed  but,  worse  still,  fled  without 
making  any  arrangement  for  paying  the  notes  which 
they  had  taken  over.  Soon  after  this  Berry  died, 
and  Lincoln  found  himself  responsible  for  the  debts 
of  the  three  stores  consolidated  the  year  before,  as 
well  as  the  debts  of  the  gentlemen  who  had  taken 
over  the  venture — responsible  and  not  a  cent  to  his 
name.  There  was  a  way  out  of  it.  He  might  have 
pleaded  bankruptcy,  but  he  could  not  square  such 
a  course  with  the  laws  that  he  had  laid  down  for 
himself.  He  went  to  the  various  creditors,  promis 
ing  them  that  he  would  pay  everything  if  they  would 
give  him  time. 

And  he  did — every  cent  of  it,  although  he  was 
nearly  twenty  years  in  doing  it  and  found  it  so  heavy 


68  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

a  burden  that  he  used  to  speak  of  his  obligation 
as  the  National  Debt. 

But  what  was  he  to  do  now?  A  big  debt  on  his 
hands,  a  great  ambition  in  his  heart,  no  friends  to 
help  him  with  money  or  influence — only  himself  to 
rely  on.  It  was  not  a  bright  outlook,  you  may 
think,  but  as  a  fact  Lincoln  had  made  in  this  part  of 
Illinois  a  reputation  for  honesty,  hard  work,  in 
telligence  and  kindness  which  was  worth  more  than 
a  fortune  in  money  would  have  been.  He  had 
proved  himself  the  kind  of  young  man  that  work 
seeks,  and  even  before  the  store  was  closed,  an  open 
ing  had  come. 

A  very  important  task  in  a  new  and  growing 
country  is  the  surveying.  Farms  and  roads  are 
being  laid  out,  towns  are  being  started,  the  work 
of  fixing  boundaries  goes  on  incessantly,  and  it  re 
quires  not  only  knowledge  and  skill  but  indifference 
to  hardship,  particularly  the  latter,  in  a  country  like 
Sangamon  County.  The  surveyor  for  that  part  of 
the  world — a  well-educated  gentleman,  John  Cal- 
houn,  needed  a  helper.  He  had  noticed  Lincoln, 
and  just  before  the  store  failed  sent  him  word  that 
if  he  would  qualify — that  is,  if  he  could  show  that 
he  knew  enough  of  the  science  of  surveying — he 
would  take  him  on  his  staff. 

Two  points  troubled  Lincoln  in  this  offer.  He 
and  Calhoun  belonged  to  opposite  political  parties 
and  he  feared  that  if  he  accepted  office  he  might 
be  expected  to  change  his  views — that  he  could  not 
do.  Then,  he  knew  nothing  of  the  science  of  sur 
veying.  He  went  to  see  Calhoun  and  frankly  stated 


Starting  Out  for  Himself 

A 


J/" 

or  A  WAP  or  ALBAHT.  ILL..  MADR  nr  I.TNCOLH- 


Starting  Out  for  Himself  71 

his  doubts.  He  was  told  that  his  position  had  no 
political  string  tied  to  it  and  that  if  he  would  learn 
surveying  they  would  wait  for  him. 

Now  surveying  is  not  an  easy  science,  but  to  Lin 
coln  this  was  no  objection.  It  was  something  new 
to  learn,  it  meant  honest,  useful,  and  well-paid  work 
that  gave  him  a  chance  to  serve  people  and  at  the 
same  time  to  get  acquainted  with  them. 

He  borrowed  the  necessary  books  and  hurrying 
back  to  New  Salem,  went  at  them.  Night  and  day 
he  studied,  going  to  Mentor  Graham  for  help  when 
puzzled.  His  friends  saw  him  grow  thin  and  white 
under  the  effort  he  made.  It  was  tremendous,  for 
in  six  weeks  he  reported  to  Calhoun  that  he  had 
mastered  the  books  and  was  ready  for  duty. 

He  now  had  a  business — a  business  he  liked  and 
one  for  which  he  soon  proved  he  was  thoroughly 
competent.  He  was  a  careful,  accurate,  conscien 
tious  surveyor.  The  boundaries  he  drew  were 
never  disputed;  but,  what  is  more  remarkable,  he 
seems  to  have  always  remembered  the  lines  he  had 
drawn  and  the  marks  that  he  had  made.  His  son 
Robert  says  that  in  1858,  when  he  was  a  boy  of 
about  fifteen,  he  drove  his  father  once  through  a 
region  in  which  he  had  done  much  surveying,  and 
that  several  times,  Mr.  Lincoln  stopped  the  horse 
and  laughingly  asked  him  to  go  a  little  distance  into 
the  woods  and  see  if  he  could  not  find,  at  a  par 
ticular  spot  which  he  described,  a  blazed  tree.  He 
had  marked  that  tree,  he  said,  as  a  survey  corner. 
Robert  Lincoln  says  that  he  did  this  several  times 
and  not  once  did  he  make  a  mistake. 


72  Boy  Scouts9  Life  of  Lincoln 

But  surveying  was  only  a  way  of  earning  an  hon 
est  living.  He  had  no  idea  of  making  it  a  perma 
nent  profession,  nor  did  he  let  it  interfere  with  his 
ambition  to  become  a  member  of  the  next  Assem 
bly  for  which  the  election  came  in  the  fall  of  1834. 
As  he  worked  he  campaigned,  and  successfully,  for 
when  the  time  came,  Lincoln  was  elected. 

Something  more  important  than  his  election  hap 
pened  to  him  in  this  campaign,  however.  This  was 
making  up  his  mind  to  adopt  the  law  as  a  profes 
sion.  Deeply  interested  as  he  had  always  been  in 
legal  reading*  he  had  never  dared  before  this  to 
hope  that  there  was  a  chance  for  him  to  learn  enough 
to  be  admitted  to  the  bar,  but  while  he  was  elec 
tioneering  one  of  his  fellow  candidates,  John  T. 
Stuart,  a  lawyer  of  Springfield  with  whom  he  had 
become  acquainted  in  the  Black  Hawk  War,  began 
to  urge  him  to  try  for  the  bar.  "I'll  lend  you 
books,"  he  told  Lincoln.  "Study  nights  and  as  you 
travel  from  place  to  place  just  as  you  have  always 
done.  You  have  already  a  foundation.  You  can 
do  it." 

There  was  nothing  Lincoln  wanted  so  much  to  be 
lieve  as  that  he  could  do  it.  At  least  he  could  try. 
Springfield  was  twenty  miles  from  New  Salem,  but 
he  walked  or  rode  back  and  forth,  to  get  the  books 
he  wanted,  and  as  he  traveled  he  studied  them — 
often  aloud. 

You  can  see  him,  can  you  not?  A  long,  lean 
figure,  with  a  great  shock  of  black  hair,  surveying 
instrument  under  his  arm,  an  open  book  in  his  hand, 
striding  or  riding  across  the  rough  prairie,  pre- 


Starting  Out  for  Himself  73 


I  AO«1MIL«  OF  A    BEl'OHT   OF  A    BOAD    SURVEY   BT    LINCOLN. 


Starting  Out  for  Himself  7$ 

paring  for  the  life  he  wanted.  He  was  not  yet  twen 
ty-six  years  old,  but  see  what  he  had  done.  He 
had  found  by  sheer  hard  work  an  interesting,  use 
ful  way  of  earning  his  living;  he  had  deter 
mined  that  the  way  was  open,  with  more  hard  work, 
to  the  profession  he  loved  and  honored  above 
all  others — the  law;  and  he  was  a  member  of  the 
Assembly  of  Illinois.  But  could  he  go  on?  Could 
a  young  man,  handicapped  by  poverty  and  lack  of 
social  and  educational  opportunities  as  he  had  been, 
succeed  when  he  left  the  pioneer  country  and  tried 
his  fortune  among  people  of  training  and  wealth? 
The  next  great  test  for  Lincoln  was  to  prove  that 
he  was  as  good  or  better  a  man  than  those  who  had 
had  every  chance  put  in  their  way  while  he  had  had 
to  make  chances  for  himself  out  of  what  seemed  to 
many  nothing  but  handicaps, 


CHAPTER  IV 

A   GREAT   DECISION 

I  didn't  begin  with  askings.     I  took  my  job  and  I  stuck 
And   I   took  the  chances  they  wouldn't,   an'  now  they're, 
calling  it  luck. 

RUDYARD  KIPLING. 

TWO  years  after  he  had  made  his  great  deci 
sion  to  become  a  lawyer,  Lincoln  felt  himself 
ready  to  apply  for  admission  to  the  bar.  He 
seems  to  have  been  able  to  satisfy  those  in  author 
ity  that  he  was  fit,  for  in  September  of  1836  he 
was  licensed.  He  did  not  begin  to  practice  at  once, 
for  just  before  this  license  was  issued,  he  had  been 
reflected  to  a  second  term  in  the  State  legislature. 
This  kept  him  busy  for  the  winter,  but  as  soon  as  he 
came  back  to  New  Salem,  early  in  the  spring  of 
1837,  he  packed  up  his  few  belongings — they  could 
all  be  put  into  a  saddlebag — and  said  good-by  to 
the  town. 

It  could  not  have  been  an  easy  parting,  for  New 
Salem  had  been  his  home  for  nearly  six  years.  There 
was  probably  not  a  man,  woman,  or  child  in  the 
town  or  the  county  around  that  he  did  not  know, 
and  with  almost  every  one  of  them  he  had  friendly 
relations.  Twice  they  had  sent  him  to  the  legisla 
ture,  and  they  would  have  liked  to  have  had  him 
stay  by  the  town,  for  nearly  all  of  his  friends  pre- 
76 


A  Great  Decision  77 

dieted  that  he  had  the  makings  of  a  great  man  in 
him. 

Not  only  was  the  parting  hard,  but  the  future 
looked  anything  but  bright.  He  was  giving  up  the 
profession  by  which  he  had  been  earning  his  living. 
He  had  what  seemed  to  him  a  huge  debt  on  his 
hands — that  left  over  from  his  venture  in  the  gro 
cery  business — and  he  was  entering  a  profession 
which  already  had  many  followers  in  Springfield, 
the  town  which  he  had  chosen  as  his  future  home. 
Could  he  succeed?  How  could  he  live?  Would 
there  be  anybody  that  would  be  willing  to  admit  him 
into  his  office? 

It  was  rather  a  melancholy  young  man  that  rode 
into  Springfield  in  March  of  1837  and  looked  about 
for  a  place  to  live.  Fortunately,  he  came  on  a 
friend  at  the  start — a  prosperous  young  storekeeper, 
James  Speed  by  name,  who  advised  Lincoln  to  rent 
a  room  and  furnish  it  himself. 

"But  I  haven't  the  money  to  buy  the  furniture," 
Lincoln  told  him. 

"If  that  is  so,  come  and  live  with  me,"  Speed 
said,  "I  have  a  big  room,  plenty  of  space  for  two 
of  us,  over  the  store." 

Lincoln  brightened  up  at  once,  and,  running  up 
stairs,  threw  his  saddlebags  on  the  floor  and  came 
back,  exclaiming  joyfully,  "Well,  Speed,  I'm 
moved." 

He  had  as  good  success  in  finding  a  law  partner 
as  he  had  a  home.  Major  John  T.  Stuart,  with 
whom  he  had  become  acquainted  in  the  Black  Hawk 
War  and  by  whose  advice  he  had  decided  to  take 


78  Boy  Scouts9  Life  of  Lincoln 

up  the  law  as  a  profession,  was  just  severing  his 
connection  with  his  partner.  He  believed  in  Lin 
coln  and  invited  him  to  join  him. 

It  was  a  fine  chance  for  a  young  lawyer — this  as 
sociation  with  a  man  so  well  established  and  so  gen 
erally  respected  as  Major  Stuart,  and  at  once  the 
training  that  Lincoln  had  given  himself  began  to 
come  out  in  his  work.  Whatever  the  case,  big  or 
little,  his  first  effort  was  to  find  out  the  root  of  the 
thing,  what  it  really  hinged  on.  He  knew  that  it 
is  not  the  leaves  on  the  tree  or  the  branches  that 
count,  it  is  the  root,  and  it  was  this  in  his  law  prob 
lems  that  he  looked  for.  He  would  give  away 
point  after  point  if  he  did  not  feel  they  were  es 
sential. 

uStrip  off  the  technicalities,"  he  used  to  say,  "get 
at  the  heart  of  the  thing,  and  then  you  can  win." 
He  never  had  any  patience  with  people  that  fussed 
over  things  that  did  not  matter.  Once,  when  he 
was  President,  a  commission  he  had  sent  out  to 
make  an  investigation  came  back  with  a  huge  re 
port,  loaded  down  with  details.  Lincoln  was  thor 
oughly  disgusted.  "If  I  send  out  a  man  to  look  up 
a  horse  for  me,  I  want  him  to  come  back  with  his 
points ;  not  how  many  hairs  he  has  on  his  tail."  And 
so  in  the  law,  it  was  always  points  he  was  after. 

Having  the  points,  he  took  ample  time  to  explain 
to  a  jury  just  what  they  were,  always  in  the  sim 
plest  kind  of  language,  without  Latin  phrases  or 
technical  terms  of  any  kind,  such  as  many  lawyers 
used.  He  generally  knew  the  jurors,  or  at  least 
knew  about  them,  just  what  their  experiences  had 


A  Great  Decision  79 

been,  the  kind  of  thing  they  would  understand;  and 
he  talked  to  them  as  if  they  were  sitting  around  the 
stove,  arguing.  He  was  very  particular,  too,  that 
the  counsel  opposing  him  should  not  befuddle  the 
minds  of  the  jury  with  misrepresentations.  When 
a  lawyer  tried  this  with  Lincoln,  he  was  sure  to  meet 
his  match.  He  would  spring  to  his  feet  and  pro 
test  so  effectively  that  almost  invariably  the  lawyer 
would  be  overruled.  Sometimes  his  anger  over  a 
misstatement  was  so  great  that  those  who  listened 
said  he  roared  like  a  lion. 

This  habit  of  Lincoln's  of  protesting  when  he  be 
lieved  the  jury  was  being  deceived  frequently  caused 
funny  scenes  in  the  Illinois  courts.  One  stormy  day, 
he  had  come  into  court  with  his  feet  soaked,  and 
after  presenting  his  case,  sat  down  by  the  courtroom 
stove  to  dry  out.  He  had  pulled  off  his  boots  and  was 
holding  up  his  big  feet,  all  the  time  listening  intently 
to  the  opposing  lawyer.  Suddenly,  the  lawyer  said 
something  that  Lincoln  knew  not  to  be  true.  He 
didn't  stop  to  put  on  his  boots,  but  with  one  in  each 
hand  sprang  into  the  middle  of  the  room,  complain 
ing  loudly  to  the  judge  that  the  counsel  was  wil 
fully  deceiving  the  jury. 

So  honest  was  he  in  his  law  work  that  he  would 
never,  if  he  could  help  it,  take  a  case  in  which  he 
did  not  thoroughly  believe.  He  wanted  nothing 
but  clean  cases,  he  said.  This  came  largely  from 
his  reverence  for  the  law — it  was  intended  to  do 
justice.  Those  who  were  wrong  should  not  win  a 
case,  in  his  judgment,  and  he  was  unwilling  to  help 
them  do  so.  He  had  the  greatest  contempt  for 


8o  Boy  Scouts9  Life  of  Lincoln 

the  fellow  that  would  look  over  the  register  of 
deeds  to  hunt  up  defects  in  titles  or  who  was  on 
the  watch  for  quarrels  out  of  which  he  might  get  a 
case.  He  was  unwilling  to  stir  up  lawsuits.  "There 
could  not  be  a  worse  man,"  he  used  to  say,  "than 
one  who  would  do  this."  His  idea  was  that  a  law 
yer's  business  was  to  point  out  to  people  who  were 
disputing  how  they  could  settle  their  differences. 
His  theory  was  set  down  in  one  of  his  fine  phrases, 
"As  a  peacemaker  the  lawyer  has  a  superior  oppor 
tunity  of  being  a  good  man." 

He  carried  out  this  theory.  A  man  came  to  him 
once  to  ask  his  help  in  a  claim  he  was  making  for 
six  hundred  dollars.  Lincoln  at  once  saw  that  the 
case  was  tricky.  "You  have  no  claim,"  he  thun 
dered.  "I  won't  take  your  case,  and  my  advice  to 
you  is  that  you  go  to  work  and  earn  six  hundred 
dollars." 

When  he  found  young  men  or  boys  trying  to  prac 
tice  sharp  tricks  on  others  and  appealing  to  the 
law  to  help  them  he  always  took  it  seriously  and 
did  his  best  to  point  out  to  them  what  a  dangerous 
thing  it  was  to  begin  life  in  this  way. 

An  old  farmer  once  employed  him  to  recover  a 
note  from  two  young  men  who  had  bought  a  team 
from  him  and  refused  to  pay  on  the  ground  that 
they  were  minors.  Lincoln  took  the  case,  and  ad 
dressing  the  jury  he  told  them  that  this  was  one  of 
the  most  important  cases  they  had  ever  had  to  de 
cide,  that  it  was  not  a  matter  of  the  payment  of 
the  money  simply,  but  it  was  a  matter  of  the  future 
of  the  two  boys.  They  were  just  starting  out  in 


A  Great  Decision  81 

life.  They  had  tried  a  dishonest  trick.  If  the  jury 
should  give  a  verdict  for  them  it  would  leave  a  stain 
of  dishonor  upon  them  which  they  could  never  live 
down.  They  would  always  be  known  as  tricksters. 
After  a  long  and  serious  talk  of  this  kind,  he  turned 
to  the  young  men. 

"Boys,"  he  said,  "pay  the  note.  You  owe  it. 
Don't  begiji  life  in  this  dishonest  way." 

The  elder  of  the  two  boys  was  so  moved  by  Mr. 
Lincoln's  appeal  that  he  promptly  promised  to  pay 
the  farmer,  and  the  judge  dismissed  the  case.  Lin 
coln  as  a  lawyer  often  did  work  for  boys  not  unlike 
that  of  a  wise  judge  of  a  juvenile  court. 

The  training  that  he  had  given  himself  in  public 
speaking  from  the  time  that  he  went  to  school  in 
Indiana  came  in  good  stead  now.  It  had  made  it 
natural  and  easy  for  him  to  speak  what  was  in  his 
mind.  Not  only  did  he  do  this  with  great  clear 
ness,  emphasizing  only  the  points  that  seemed  to  him 
to  matter,  but  with  a  candor  which  won  every  lis 
tener.  His  wonderful  skill  in  illustrating  a  point 
by  a  story  helped  him  greatly  with  a  jury.  Often 
he  could  make  them  see  things  by  a  story  or  an 
illustration  drawn  from  things  with  which  they  were 
familiar  more  quickly  and  effectively  than  by  any 
amount  of  hard  legal  argument.  And  you  could 
depend  on  him  to  put  all  the  fun  possible  into  his 
pleading.  He  told  his  stories  with  so  much  zest, 
often  acting  them  out  as  he  went  along,  that  every 
body  in  the  courtroom  was  all  attention  when  he 
began  to  plead. 

Take  this  case  as  an  illustration.     A  quarrelsome, 


82  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

profane  chap  in  the  community  had  attacked  a  man, 
but  he  had  chosen  the  wrong  victim  this  time,  for 
he  was  soundly  thrashed.  Instead  of  taking  quietly 
what  he  had  brought  upon  himself,  like  the  bully 
that  he  was,  he  brought  a  charge  of  assault  and  bat 
tery  against  the  man  whom  he  had  attacked.  Mr. 
Lincoln  took  the  case  of  the  defendant.  He  told 
the  jury  that  his  client  was  in  the  fix  of  a  man  who, 
walking  down  the  road  with  a  pitchfork  on  his 
shoulder,  was  attacked  by  a  fierce  dog.  In  fighting 
the  animal  off  he  stuck  the  prongs  of  his  fork  into 
the  brute  and  killed  him. 

"What  made  you  kill  my  dog?"  said  the  farmer. 

"What  made  him  try  to  bite  me?" 

"Well,  why  didn't  you  get  after  him  with  the 
other  end  of  the  pitchfork?" 

"Why  didn't  he  come  after  me  with  his  other 
end?" 

Mr.  Lincoln,  as  he  made  this  answer,  whirled 
about,  in  his  long  arms  an  imaginary  dog,  and 
pushed  its  tail  toward  the  jurors.  The  acting  was 
so  good  and  so  comical  that  the  case  was  won  with 
out  further  pleading. 

The  court  enjoyed  Lincoln's  fun,  but  at  the  same 
time  they  had  a  wholesome  respect  for  his  indig 
nation.  When  he  tried  a  case  against  an  out-and- 
out  rascal,  he  was  often  biting  in  his  satires.  You 
remember  how,  when  he  was  still  a  boy  in  Gentry- 
ville,  he  used  satirical  verse  to  ridicule  an  enemy. 
When  he  came  to  the  law,  he  often  employed  his 
power  of  satire  against  an  opponent.  "Lincoln's 
skinning  him,"  the  people  used  to  say,  and  he  him- 


A  Great  Decision  83 

self  would  sometimes  remark,  "Just  you  watch  me 
skin  him,"  when  he  was  prosecuting  a  sneak,  a  liar, 
or  a  thief. 

All  these  qualities  would  not  have  amounted  to 
so  much  in  the  law  if  he  had  not  been  so  thorough 
and  so  continuous  a  student.  Much  as  he  had  read, 
he  was  always  conscious  of  how  much  he  did  not 
know — one  of  the  most  important  things  for  a  man 
who  wants  to  do  real  things  in  the  world  to  realize. 
He  was  never  willing  to  let  even  a  small  case  go 
without  giving  it  honest  study.  Lawyers  who  trav 
eled  with  him  on  the  circuit  always  told,  as  long  as 
they  lived,  of  how,  night  after  night,  when  they 
were  sleeping,  Lincoln  would  lie  in  bed  with  a  lamp 
on  a  chair  beside  him,  studying  law  books.  Always 
to  know  more  was  what  he  was  after. 

Whenever  he  had  a  chance,  he  studied  lawyers  of 
large  reputation  and  compared  his  own  knowledge 
with  theirs,  trying  to  learn  from  them.  In  1855, 
twenty  years  after  he  took  his  first  decision  to  read 
law,  he  was  called  to  Cincinnati  in  a  case  which  was 
famous  in  those  days,  that  of  the  McCormick 
Reaper. 

The  case  hinged  on  the  ownership  of  certain  pat 
ents,  and  required  much  knowledge  of  harvesting 
machinery.  The  company  which  was  being  sued  by 
McCormick  for  infringing  his  patents  had  employed 
the  best  patent  lawyers  in  the  country,  among  them, 
Edwin  M.  Stanton,  who,  only  a  few  years  later,  was 
to  be  Secretary  of  War  under  Lincoln. 

A  younger  member  of  the  company  who  knew 
Lincoln  well  and  admired  him  greatly,  suggested 


84  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

that  he  be  included  in  the  counsel.  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
greatly  pleased,  for  it  would  associate  him  with 
famous  lawyers  of  the  East.  He  studied  the  testi 
mony  diligently  and  went  to  Cincinnati  where  the 
trial  was  held,  hoping,  no  doubt,  to  make  an  im 
pression.  But  when  he  arrived  there,  he  felt  that 
Stanton  and  his  associates,  men  of  the  East,  who 
regarded  themselves  as  vastly  superior  to  the  coun 
try  lawyer  of  Illinois,  treated  him  with  something 
like  contempt.  They  did  not  seek  his  counsel,  and 
they  did  not  ask  him  to  present  his  argument.  Mr. 
Lincoln  was  much  hurt  by  their  unwillingness  to 
take  him  in,  and  at  first  wanted  to  go  home,  but  his 
friend  persuaded  him  to  stay  and  hear  the  trial  out. 
No  sooner  was  the  argument  fairly  launched  than 
he  became  intensely  interested.  He  saw  at  once 
that  these  men  whom  he  believed  to  have  been  un 
fair  and  unkind  to  him  were  at  the  same  time  great 
lawyers,  men  with  a  large  command  of  legal  learn 
ing.  He  listened  with  the  closest  attention  to  every 
point  made;  never,  he  claimed  afterward,  had  he 
heard  pleading  which  impressed  him  more. 

After  the  trial  was  over  he  said  to  his  friend,  "I 
am  going  home.  I  am  going  home  to  study  law." 

"Why,  Mr.  Lincoln,"  his  friend  said,  uyou  stand 
at  the  head  of  the  bar  in  Illinois  now.  What  are 
you  talking  about?" 

"Oh,  I  know,  I  can  get  along  with  the  way  things 
are  done  there  now,"  he  said;  "but  these  college- 
trained  men,  who  have  devoted  their  whole  lives 
to  study,  are  coming  out  West  one  of  these  days. 
They  study  their  cases  as  we  never  do.  They  have 


A  Great  Decision  85 

got  as  far  as  Cincinnati  now.  They  will  soon  be 
in  Illinois.  I  am  going  home  to  study  law,  and 
when  they  get  to  Illinois,  I'll  be  ready  for  them." 

Hard  work  always  counts.  More  and  more  im 
portant  cases  came  Lincoln's  way,  many  of  them 
connected  with  the  development  of  the  new  coun 
try.  An  interesting  one  came  to  him  in  1857.  You 
remember  how  all  through  his  young  manhood  he 
had  been  associated  with  rivers — the  Ohio,  the  San- 
gamon,  the  Mississippi — and  how  interested  he  had 
been  in  the  transportation  and  travel  which  went  on 
by  the  rivers?  But  in  the  4o's  and  5o's  railroads 
began  to  multiply  in  Illinois.  Soon  they  wanted 
to  cross  the  Mississippi  and  reach  the  great  plains 
beyond.  It  was  natural  enough  that  the  river  boats 
which  up  to  this  time  had  had  a  monopoly  of  the 
carrying  trade  should  object  to  the  rivers  being 
bridged.  Not  only  did  they  object  but  the  cities 
of  the  South  objected.  They  thought  it  would  di 
vert  business  from  them.  But  a  bridge  was  put  over 
the  Mississippi  finally  at  Rock  Island.  It  proved 
a  great  thing  for  Chicago,  then  little  more  than  a 
village ;  the  town  began  to  build  up  rapidly  because 
of  this  direct  connection  with  the  country  beyond. 

In  1856  a  steamer,  the  Effie  Afton,  struck  one  of 
the  piers  of  the  Rock  Island  Bridge  and  was  wrecked 
and  burned,  a  part  of  the  bridge  being  at  the  same 
time  destroyed.  The  owners  of  the  steamboat  at 
once  brought  suit  against  the  railroad.  The  river 
must  not  be  bridged  again.  St.  Louis,  then  the 
largest  city  along  the  river,  jealous  of  the  growth 
of  Chicago,  joined  the  boat  owners  in  the  fight 


86  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

The  entire  Middle  West  was  excited  over  the  issue. 
Lincoln  was  engaged  to  defend  the  bridge. 

It  was  a  case  which  gave  him  full  opportunity  for 
the  problems  that  he  liked  best.  The  character  of 
the  Mississippi,  its  currents,  velocity,  driftwood, 
depth  of  water,  the  customs  of  navigators  and  pilots 
— many  points  involving  nice  problems  both  of  river 
navigation  and  of  engineering  were  involved. 

He  went  at  the  task  ulike  a  dog  at  a  root,"  as  he 
used  to  express  it,  and  mastered  an  enormous  num 
ber  of  facts  and  figures  so  thoroughly  that  as  the 
trial  went  on,  he  was  able,  again  and  again,  to  cor 
rect  his  opponents,  without  consulting  his  notes.  He 
won  the  case  practically  on  two  points — one  based 
on  common  sense,  that  one  man  has  just  as  good  a 
right  to  go  across  a  river  as  another  has  to  go  up 
or  down  it;  the  second  based  on  an  imaginative  sense 
of  what  was  good  for  the  country.  He  drew  a 
wonderful  and  moving  picture  of  the  possibilities  of 
the  great  West  beyond  the  Mississippi  and  the  duty 
of  men  to  combine  to  open  it  up  to  the  world. 

This  case  showed  Lincoln  at  his  very  best,  and 
it  proved,  too,  how  thoroughly  he  was  following 
his  decision,  the  decision  he  had  taken  two  years 
before  at  Cincinnati — to  go  back  to  Illinois  and 
study  law. 

Hard  as  he  worked  and  extensive  as  was  the  prac 
tice  he  built  up,  Lincoln  never  made  much  money. 
His  first  object  in  practicing  law  was  not  money; 
it  was  to  see  that  justice  is  done  among  men.  His 
fees  were  always  small,  and  they  were  fitted  to  the 
pocketbook  of  his  client.  Again  and  again  he  would 


A  Great  Decision  87 

take  a  case  for  a  poor  or  weak  client  where  he  would 
receive  little  or  nothing  when  he  might  have  ob 
tained  a  good-sized  fee  on  the  other  side. 

A  widow  whose  cow  had  been  killed  by  a  rail 
road  train  once  came  to  him  for  help.  The  rail 
road,  knowing  Lincoln's  power,  was  anxious  about 
the  case.  It  did  not  want  the  widow  to  win  lest 
a  precedent  be  established  and  it  be  obliged  to  pay 
damages  whenever  its  trains  killed  an  animal.  It 
accordingly  sent  an  agent  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  offering 
him  a  retainer  of  five  hundred  dollars — a  very  large 
sum  at  that  time,  if  he  would  take  the  case. 

"But  I  have  already  promised  the  widow  I  will 
take  her  case." 

"But  the  widow  cannot  pay  you  anything,"  the 
agent  argued,  "and  here  is  five  hundred  dollars  as 
a  retainer." 

"No,"  thundered  Lincoln,  "I  won't  go  back  on 
her.  I  will  take  her  case  and  moreover  I  will  win 
it."  And  win  it  he  did. 

Although  Lincoln  made  so  little  money  as  a  law 
yer,  there  never  was  a  man  more  generous  with  what 
he  had.  Money  seems  to  have  meant  nothing  to 
him  save  to  fulfill  his  obligations  and  to  help  others. 
His  father's  family  was  one  of  the  first  to  profit 
all  their  lives  by  his  generosity.  Thomas  Lincoln 
kept  his  little  home  in  Coles  County,  Illinois,  until 
his  death,  and  his  stepmother  held  it  afterward  and 
had  her  support  through  Abraham  Lincoln's  kind 
ness.  He  could  be  very  stern,  however,  with  those 
of  his  relatives  whom  he  knew  were  shiftless.  No 
more  sensible  letters  were  ever  written  to  a  lazy 


88  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

and  discontented  man  than  those  Lincoln  wrote  to 
his  stepbrother,  John  D.  Johnston,  a  ne'er-do-well 
whom  he  had  often  assisted.  Here  is  one  of  them : 

"DEAR  JOHNSTON:  Your  request  for  eighty  dollars  I  do  not 
think  it  best  to  comply  with  now.  At  the  various  times  when 
I  have  helped  you  a  little  you  have  said  to  me,  'We  can  get 
along  very  well  now;'  but  in  a  very  short  time  I  find  you  in 
the  same  difficulty  again.  Now,  this  can  only  happen  by  some 
defect  in  your  conduct.  What  that  defect  is,  I  think  I  know. 
You  are  not  lazy,  and  still  you  are  an  idler.  I  doubt  whether, 
since  I  saw  you,  you  have  done  a  good  whole  day's  work  in  any 
one  day.  You  do  not  very  much  dislike  to  work,  and  still  you 
do  not  work  much,  merely  because  it  does  not  seem  to  you  that 
you  could  get  much  for  it.  This  habit  of  uselessly  wasting 
time  is  the  whole  difficulty;  it  is  vastly  important  to  you,  and 
still  more  so  to  your  children,  that  you  should  break  the  habit. 
It  is  more  important  to  them,  because  they  have  longer  to  live, 
and  can  keep  out  of  an  idle  habit  before  they  are  in  it,  easier 
than  they  can  get  out  after  they  are  in. 

"You  are  now  in  need  of  some  money;  and  what  I  propose 
is,  that  you  shall  go  to  work,  'tooth  and  nail,'  for  somebody 
who  will  give  you  money  for  it.  Let  father  and  your  boys  take 
charge  of  your  things  at  home,  prepare  for  a  crop,  and  make 
the  crop,  and  you  go  to  work  for  the  best  money  wages,  or 
in  discharge  of  any  debt  you  owe,  that  you  can  get;  and,  to 
secure  you  a  fair  reward  for  your  labor,  I  now  promise  you, 
that  for  every  dollar  you  will,  between  this  and  the  first  of 
May,  get  for  your  own  labor,  either  in  money  or  as  your  own 
indebtedness,  I  will  then  give  you  one  other  dollar.  By  this,  if 
you  hire  yourself  at  ten  dollars  a  month,  from  me  you  will 
get  ten  more,  making  twenty  dollars  a  month  for  your  work. 
In  this  I  do  not  mean  you  shall  go  off  to  St.  Louis,  or  the  lead 
mines,  or  the  gold  mines  in  California,  but  I  mean  for  you  to 
go  at  it  for  the  best  wages  you  can  get  close  to  home  in  Coles 
County.  Now,  if  you  will  do  this,  you  will  be  soon  out  of 
debt,  and,  what  is  better,  you  will  have  a  habit  that  will  keep 
you  from  getting  in  debt  again.  But,  if  I  should  now  clear 
you  out  of  debt,  next  year  you  would  be  just  as  deep  in  as  ever. 
You  say  you  would  almost  give  your  place  in  heaven  for 
seventy  or  eighty  dollars.  Then  you  value  your  place  in  heaven 
very  cheap,  for  I  am  sure  you  can,  with  the  offer  I  make,  get 


A  Great  Decision  89 

the  seventy  or  eighty  dollars  for  four  or  five  months'  work. 
You  say  if  I  will  furnish  you  the  money  you  will  deed  me  the 
land,  and  if  you  don't  pay  the  money  back,  you  will  deliver 
possession.  Nonsense!  If  you  can't  now  live  with  the  land, 
how  will  you  then  live  without  it?  You  have  always  been  kind 
to  me,  and  I  do  not  mean  to  be  unkind  to  you.  On  the  con 
trary,  if  you  will  but  follow  my  advice,  you  will  find  it  worth 
more  than  eighty  times  eighty  dollars  to  you. 
"Affectionately  your  brother, 

"A.  LINCOLN." 

So  modest  was  Lincoln  about  his  fees  that  his 
fellow  lawyers  were  often  provoked  at  him,  because 
he  would  not  keep  up  prices.  They  even  on  one  oc 
casion  arrested  him  and  held  a  mock  trial  at  which 
he  was  accused  of  impoverishing  the  bar.  He  was 
found  guilty  but  let  off  on  condition  that  he  would 
correct  what  they  claimed  to  be  his  evil  ways. 

These  mock  trials  of  the  Illinois  lawyers  were 
one  of  the  ways  that  they  amused  themselves  on  the 
circuit.  In  those  days  in  that  part  of  the  world, 
lawyers  traveled  from  county  seat  to  county  seat 
over  a  big  circuit.  Lincoln  lived  in  Springfield,  but 
he  practiced  throughout  the  Eighth  Judicial  Dis 
trict.  There  were  five  counties  in  this  district,  and 
every  fall  and  every  spring  the  court  traveled  from 
place  to  place,  taking  care  of  the  law  business. 
There  were  no  railroads,  and  they  went  on  horse 
back  or  in  buggies  or  wagons,  generally  in  groups. 
These  trips  were  full  of  fun  and  excitement.  The 
country  was  wild  and  many  of  the  lawyers  carried 
guns,  looking  for  deer  and  smaller  animals.  Not 
unfrequently  the  court  was  delayed  a  day  or  more 
because  a  part  of  the  company,  the  judge  included, 
was  tracking  a  deer,  Practical  jokes  were  common 


9o  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

on  these  journeys.  Lincoln  played  one  once  of 
which  lawyers  in  Illinois  still  tell. 

It  was  in  the  spring  of  the  year,  and  a  river  which 
the  party  supposed  they  must  cross  in  order  to  get 
to  the  town  where  they  were  due  had  overflowed  the 
prairies;  it  looked  as  if  the  whole  country  was  under 
water.  None  of  the  lawyers  except  Lincoln  were 
familiar  with  the  place,  and  they  were  feeling  pretty 
serious. 

"I  know  this  country,"  Lincoln  told  them,  "and  if 
you  will  trust  yourselves  to  me,  I  will  take  you  to 
town  safely."  Of  course  they  consented. 

"You  must  strip,"  he  said,  "it  is  pretty  wet  around 
here,"  so  judge  and  lawyers  pulled  off  coats,  trou 
sers,  shirts,  and  boots  down  to  the  skin,  rolled  them 
all  in  tight  bundles,  and,  under  Lincoln's  directions, 
strapped  them  to  their  saddles. 

"Fall  in  line,"  was  Lincoln's  order;  and  at  the 
head  of  this  queer-looking  procession  he  started  on 
a  long,  roundabout  journey.  For  two  or  three  hours 
the  men  traveled,  the  water  never  much  above  their 
horses'  hoofs,  when  suddenly  Lincoln  announced, 
"Here's  our  town."  Then  it  dawned  on  them  that 
their  idea  that  they  must  cross  the  main  channel  of 
the  river  in  order  to  get  to  the  place  was  a  mistake ; 
that  they  had  been  on  the  right  side  all  the  time. 
All  that  they  had  been  doing  in  their  nakedness  was 
to  skirt  the  edge  of  a  shallow  overflow. 

If  the  stories  of  these  years  that  Lincoln  traveled 
the  Eighth  Circuit  are  full  of  practical  jokes,  they 
are  still  fuller  of  tales  of  his  kindness,  not  to  men 


A  Great  Decision  91 

alone  but  even  to  birds  of  the  air.  His  companions 
when  they  went  back  to  their  families  nearly  al 
ways  had  some  story  to  tell  their  children  of  the 
good  turns  he  did. 

One  day  as  they  were  going  along,  he  heard  birds 
crying.  He  at  once  dismounted,  looked  them  up, 
found  they  had  fallen  from  their  nest,  and  carefully 
put  them  back.  Again  they  passed  a  young  pig 
which  had  been  caught  in  a  rail  fence,  so  tight  that 
it  could  not  get  out.  It  was  squealing  for  dear  life 
and  in  danger  of  killing  itself.  Lincoln  stopped  and 
with  great  care  removed  the  fence  and  let  the  little 
fellow  loose.  Then  he  put  the  bars  back  and  went 
on. 

In  the  towns  everybody  knew  him  and  loved  him. 
There  were  boys  and  girls  in  many  of  those  towns 
who  would  run  home  at  night,  crying  joyfully,  "Mr. 
Lincoln  has  come !  Mr.  Lincoln  has  come !"  When 
he  visited  in  their  homes  they  gathered  about  him 
and  listened  to  his  stories.  Many  a  boy,  when  he 
knew  Mr.  Lincoln  was  going  to  try  a  case,  would 
slip  in  to  hear  him  argue.  He  would  play  ball  with 
them  on  the  street,  pitch  quoits,  and  wrestle  with 
them.  They  were  not  afraid  even  to  play  practical 
jokes  on  him. 

He  wore  a  tall,  stovepipe  hat,  as  was  the  custom, 
and  one  day  in  Bloomington,  Illinois,  some  of  his 
young  admirers  rigged  a  string  across  the  street,  at 
just  the  proper  height  to  catch  his  hat  and  tip  it  off. 
Lincoln  took  after  the  young  rascals,  chasing  them 
so  hard  and  furiously  that  they  were  frightened. 


92  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

He  finally  collared  them  all,  and  when  he  saw  they 
were  looking  scared,  said,  "Come  on,  boys,  I  will 
stand  treat." 

Not  only  was  he  the  friend  of  the  children  but  of 
the  young  men  just  starting  out  in  the  law  and  need 
ing  advice  and  encouragement.  He  never  was  too 
busy  to  help  a  beginner  out  of  a  tight  place  or  to 
give  him  a  hint  if  he  saw  he  was  in  danger  of  mak 
ing  a  mistake.  To  many  a  young  lawyer  on  the 
circuit  he  was  like  a  father.  Perhaps  the  best  thing 
he  gave  them  after  his  genuine  sympathy  in  their 
difficulties  was  his  constant  advice  to  "work,  work, 
work." 

Everywhere  he  went,  up  and  down  the  country, 
he  was  loved;  and  never,  in  all  those  years  when 
he  was  not  only  becoming  daily  a  greater  and  greater 
lawyer  but  was  becoming  more  and  more  prominent 
in  public  affairs,  did  he  neglect  an  opportunity  to 
do  a  good  turn  to  an  old  friend. 

In  1857,  when  his  mind  was  absorbed  with  several 
important  lawsuits,  with  the  arguments  that  he  was 
working  out  against  the  extension  of  slavery  in  this 
country,  and  with  fostering  the  new  Republican 
party  which  was  opposed  to  this  extension,  he 
learned  one  day  that  Duff  Armstrong,  the  son  of 
Jack  Armstrong,  the  bully  of  the  Clary's  Grove 
Gang  whom,  you  will  remember,  he  had  thrashed 
in  New  Salem  back  in  1832,  had  been  arrested  for 
murder. 

Now»  the  thrashing  that  Lincoln  had  given  Jack 
Armstrong  had  done  him  good  and  had  made  him 
Lincoln's  friend.  It  had  made  Hannah  Armstrong. 


A  Great  Decision  93 

his  wife,  Lincoln's  friend,  too,  and  she  had  played 
almost  the  part  of  a  mother  to  him — doing  his 
mending,  washing  his  clothes,  and  looking  after 
him  in  many  ways.  When  Lincoln  heard  of  the 
sorrow  that  had  come  to  Hannah  Armstrong,  he 
immediately  wrote  her  the  following  letter: 

"Springfield,  111., 

"Sept.,  1857- 

"DEAR  MRS.  ARMSTRONG:  I  have  just  heard  of  your  deep 
affliction,  and  the  arrest  of  your  son  for  murder.  I  can 
hardly  believe  that  he  can  be  capable  of  the  crime  alleged 
against  him.  It  does  not  seem  possible.  I  am  anxious  that 
he  should  be  given  a  fair  trial,  at  any  rate;  and  gratitude  for 
your  long-continued  kindness  to  me  in  adverse  circumstances 
prompts  me  to  offer  my  humble  services  gratuitously  in  his 
behalf. 

"It  will  afford  me   an   opportunity  to   requite,   in   a  small 
degree,  the  favors  I  received  at  your  hand,  and  that  of  your 
lamented   husband,   when   your   roof   afforded   me   a   grateful 
shelter,  without  money  and  without  price. 
"Yours  truly, 

"A.  LINCOLN." 

One  night  in  August,  1857,  at  a  camp  meeting 
near  Havana,  Duff,  while  drunk,  quarreled  with  a 
friend  and  thrashed  him.  A  few  hours  later,  the 
same  night,  this  boy  was  killed.  The  marks  of  two 
blows  were  found  upon  him — one  of  them  proved  to 
be  from  an  ox  yoke  in  the  hands  of  a  third  mem 
ber  of  the  gang.  Duff  Armstrong  was  accused  of 
dealing  the  second  with  a  sling  shot.  He  denied 
having  used  anything  but  his  fist  in  the  quarrel  with 
the  victim,  a  quarrel  which  he  admitted.  The  first 
man  was  tried,  found  guilty,  and  sentenced.  Duft 


94  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

lay  in  jail  for  several  months,  awaiting  his  trial. 
Mrs.  Armstrong  in  the  meantime  was  distracted 
with  anxiety.  Jack  had  died  soon  after  Duff's  ar 
rest,  and  the  last  thing  he  had  said  to  her  was,  "Sell 
everything  you  have  and  clear  Duff."  She  was  not 
at  all  sure  it  could  be  done. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  letter  must  have  come  to  her  like 
a  gift  from  God.  The  lawyers  whom  she  had  en 
gaged  were  glad  enough  to  have  his  assistance.  It 
was  a  number  of  months  before  the  trial  came  off. 
Mr.  Lincoln  took  charge  of  the  case  from  the  start. 

The  witnesses,  the  jury,  the  spectators  were  nearly 
all  people,  or  sons  of  people,  that  he  had  known 
in  his  early  days  in  Illinois,  and  he  talked  to  them 
in  his  friendly,  intimate  fashion,  trying  to  get  at 
the  truth  of  what  had  happened.  It  finally  came 
down  to  this,  that  the  only  damaging  testimony 
against  Duff  was  that  of  a  boy  who  swore  that  he  had 
seen  Duff  strike.  "What  time  of  night  was  that?" 
Mr.  Lincoln  asked. 

"Ten  or  eleven  o'clock,"  he  said. 

"How  could  you  see  him?" 

"Why,"  he  said,  "it  was  full  moon,  and  I  could 
see  as  clear  as  when  the  sun  was  in  the  sky." 

Mr.  Lincoln  came  back  again  and  again  to  this 
testimony.  "You  could  see  him  by  the  light  of  the 
moon?"  It  was  thoroughly  impressed  on  the  jury 
that  this  was  where  the  case  hung,  and  it  seemed 
as  if  this  evidence  would  convict  poor  Duff. 

When  Mr.  Lincoln  rose  to  speak,  he  went  back 
to  the  early  days  when  he  had  known  Duff's  father 
and  mother,  and  told  of  their  kindness  to  him  when 


A  Great  Decision  95 

he  was  alone  and  poor.  He  painted  something  of 
the  life  of  the  boy  and  his  waywardness,  and  showed 
that  the  only  serious  testimony  against  him  was  this 
of  the  boy  who  swore  that  he  saw  him  strike  by  the 
light  of  the  moon.  At  this  point,  Mr.  Lincoln 
pulled  out  of  his  pocket  an  almanac  of  1857,  and 
turning  to  the  phase  of  the  moon  on  the  date  of  the 
murder,  he  pointed  out  that  it  was  quite  impossible 
that  this  testimony  was  true,  because  the  moon  that 
night  was  in  its  first  quarter  and  had  sunk  before 
the  hour  of  the  murder. 

Judge  and  jury  and  lawyers  pored  over  the  al 
manac  in  amazement.  He  had  completely  riddled 
the  damaging  testimony,  and  Duff  was  freed. 

This  springing  of  a  surprise  at  the  end  of  a  trial 
was  characteristic  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  It  was  like  the 
surprise  in  a  play.  In  the  Trailer  case,  as  it  is 
called,  where  Lincoln  represented  the  two  Trailer 
brothers  who  had  been  arrested  on  a  confession  of  a 
third  brother  for  the  murder  of  a  man,  he  created 
a  sensation  by  producing  in  the  open  court  the  man 
said  to  have  been  murdered. 

It  was  in  this  way  that  in  the  years  from  1837  to 
1860,  Lincoln  built  up  his  law  practice.  In  those 
years  he  tried  nearly  one  hundred  and  seventy-five 
cases  before  the  Illinois  Supreme  Court,  many  of 
them  of  first  importance.  He  became  a  great  law 
yer,  not  only  because  of  his  knowledge  of  the  law 
and  his  skill  in  pleading,  but  because  he  looked  on 
the  law  as  the  instrument  for  seeing  that  justice  is 
done.  He  did  it  by  his  clearness  of  mind,  his  pas- 


96  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

sion  for  the  truth,  his  candor,  his  wit,  his  honest  in 
dignation  against  the  thing  that  was  mean  and 
sneaking,  and,  above  all,  by  his  willingness  to  study 
and  keep  studying,  always  feeling  that  he  did  not 
know  enough  of  his  great  subject.  There  can  be 
no  doubt  that  if  he  had  continued  in  his  profession 
the  day  would  have  come  when  he  would  have 
been  able  to  meet  on  equal  terms  the  great  lawyers 
of  the  East  as  they  came  West,  and  that  he  himself 
would  have  been  going  East  as  their  peer. 

But,  great  as  was  his  interest  in  his  profession, 
his  reverence  for  it  and  his  desire  to  serve  men 
through  it,  the  law  had  always  had  a  rival  in  Lin 
coln's  mind;  that  rival  was  politics.  In  all  these 
years  in  which  he  had  been  building  himself  up  in 
the  law  to  a  point  where  he  could  meet  the  best  of 
them,  not  only  at  home  but  abroad,  he  had  never 
forgotten  that  he  was  a  citizen  before  he  was  a  law 
yer.  We  left  him  in  1834  a  member  of  the  state 
legislature  to  follow  his  course  as  a  lawyer,  now 
we  will  go  back  and  see  what  kind  of  a  public  servant 
he  had  made. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE  CALL  OF  HIS  COUNTRY 

And  though  he  promise  to  his  loss 
He  makes  his  promise  good. 

NAHUM  TATE. 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN  was  only  a  little  boy 
when  he  first  began  to  understand  that  he 
lived  in  a  country  in  whose  affairs  every  man 
is  expected  to  take  a  part.  Revolutionary  soldiers 
who  had  fought  under  George  Washington  some 
times  sat  at  his  father's  fireside  and  told  tales  of 
Valley  Forge  and  Yorktown.  He  learned  from 
them  that  the  United  States  was  a  young  country  and 
that  it  had  cost  men  a  terrible  struggle  to  give  it 
life.  He  discovered  that  after  the  war  of  which 
they  talked  there  had  followed  a  long,  hard  polit 
ical  fight  to  secure  what  they  spoke  of  as  the  Union. 
And  they  told  how,  when  the  plan  for  running  this 
Union  was  ready — they  called  it  a  Constitution — 
it  had  taken  months  to  persuade  the  people  to  agree 
to  it  and  to  promise  to  carry  on  their  affairs  accord 
ing  to  its  directions. 

Later  a  life  of  Washington  fell  into  his  hands 
which  helped  him  to  understand  still  better  what 
men  had  done  in  those  early  days.  He  never  forgot 
the  stories  of  the  battlefields,  of  the  sufferings  of 
soldiers,  of  women,  and  of  children  of  which  that 

97 


98  Boy  Scouts9  Life  of  Lincoln 

book  told.  The  thing  that  fixed  itself  particularly  in 
his  mind  was  that  these  men  had  struggled  for 
something  more  than  their  own  interest,  something 
more  even  than  independence;  it  was  a  dream  that 
if  they  could  work  out  their  freedom  in  the  way  that 
they  had  planned,  that  it  would  be  a  "great  promise 
to  all  the  people  of  the  world,  to  all  time  to  come." 

Washington,  the  Constitution,  the  Declaration  of 
Independence — these  were  the  things  over  which  he 
pondered;  and  as  he  did  so  there  came  a  great  de 
sire  in  him  to  do  his  part  toward  making  the  new 
country  a  success.  He  wanted  to  be  a  man  like 
Washington,  like  others  of  whom  he  read  in  the 
"Kentucky  Preceptor" — men  who  had  spent  all  their 
lives  trying  to  free  the  oppressed  and  bring  more 
happiness  to  the  world. 

You  have  seen  how,  in  all  those  years  of  his  early 
manhood,  difficult  as  things  were  for  him,  he  worked 
hard  and  constantly  to  fit  himself  to  be  the  kind  of 
a  man  he  thought  a  citizen  in  a  free  country  should 
be.  "Every  man  is  said  to  have  his  peculiar  ambi 
tion,"  he  told  the  people  of  Sangamon  County,  when 
he  first  asked  their  votes.  "Whether  it  be  true  or 
not,  I  can  say  for  one  that  I  have  no  other  so  great 
as  that  of  being  esteemed  by  my  fellow  men  by 
rendering  myself  worthy  of  their  esteem."  The 
more  the  people  knew  of  him,  the  more  they  real 
ized  that  he  was  what  he  sought  to  be — "worthy  of 
their  esteem" ;  and  it  was  because  of  this  that  they 
elected  him  to  three  successive  terms  in  the  As 
sembly. 


The  Call  of  His  Country  99 

Lincoln  began  his  career  as  a  public  servant  de 
termined  to  repay  the  people  of  Sangamon  County 
for  its  confidence — they  should  never  be  sorry  they 
chose  him.  He  was  not  going  to  let  them  even  be 
ashamed  of  his  appearance.  Up  to  this  time  in 
his  life  he  had  never  worn  anything  but  rough  and 
ill-fitting  clothes.  Now  he  proposed  to  look  like 
a  legislator,  so,  hateful  as  borrowing  was  to  him, 
he  went  to  a  well-to-do  friend  and  asked  him  to 
lend  him  enough  money  to  buy  a  complete  outfit 
— a  broadcloth  suit,  a  satin  waistcoat  and  stock,  a 
high  hat.  When  he  arrived  in  Vandalia  there  was 
nothing  in  his  appearance  to  discredit  Sangamon 
County. 

Luckily  for  him,  the  chief  interest  of  the  Assem 
bly  when  he  entered  was  transportation — a  matter 
on  which  he  had  thought  much.  Up  to  this  time  Lin 
coln  had  seen  no  practical  method  but  improving 
the  rivers.  Railroads  would  cost  too  much.  At 
one  time,  when  there  had  been  talk  of  building  a 
short  line  connecting  Sangamon  County  with  the 
Mississippi,  he  had  said  in  a  speech,  "However  high 
our  imaginations  may  be  heated  at  thoughts  of 
a  railroad,  there  is  a  heart-appalling  shock  accom 
panying  the  amount  of  its  cost."  The  sum  which 
gave  Lincoln  this  shock  was  $290,000 1 

But  by  the  time  he  reached  the  Assembly,  things 
had  changed  in  the  country.  There  had  been  an 
enormous  increase  in  population.  Population  meant 
wealth — wealth,  if  they  could  have  railroads.  So, 
without  much  consideration  of  how  they  were  going 


ioo  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

to  pay  for  them,  the  legislators  began  laying  out 
railroads  in  every  direction.  Practically  every  town 
in  Illinois — and  even  some  settlements  that  could 
scarcely  be  called  towns — sent  delegations  to  the 
capital,  asking  for  a  railroad.  It  was  easy  enough 
to  put  it  on  paper,  so  down  it  went  until  the  State 
was  crossed  and  crisscrossed  in  every  direction  with 
hopeful  plans. 

Of  course  there  was  no  way  of  paying  for  all  this 
except  by  credit,  and  quite  as  freely  as  they  had  made 
their  paper  railways,  they  now  voted  bonds.  Lin 
coln  was  carried  away  as  thoroughly  as  the  rest 
of  his  colleagues,  voting  charters  and  credits  with 
out  limit.  A  confident,  hopeful  citizen,  his  new 
colleagues  thought  him,  one  who  believed  in  the 
State  and  was  willing  to  agree  to  anything  which 
promised  to  help  in  its  development.  It  was  not 
long,  however,  before  they  began  to  see  that  he  was 
something  more,  that  he  had  in  him  the  makings 
of  an  unusual  political  leader.  The  capital  of  Illi 
nois  at  that  time,  Vandalia,  was  in  the  southern  part 
of  the  State.  The  population  of  the  north  was  in 
creasing  every  day,  and  there  began  to  be  loud  com 
plaints  about  the  inconvenience  of  traveling  so  far 
to  get  to  the  Assembly.  It  soon  became  certain 
that  there  must  be  a  change,  and  of  course  at  once 
there  were  many  candidates  in  the  field  for  the 
prize.  Among  these  was  Springfield,  in  Sangamon 
County.  It  was  a  small,  unkempt  town,  with  no 
communication  with  the  rest  of  the  world  except  by 
the  poorest  of  poor  roads ;  but  its  geographical  po- 


The  Call  of  Eh  Country  '      ^ :  vioi 


sition  was  ideal — particularly  in  the  minds  of  the 
Sangamon  delegation.  This  group  of  men,  known 
as  the  "Long  Nine'7  because  their  average  height 
was  around  six  feet,  and  their  average  weight  some 
thing  over  two  hundred  pounds,  was  as  big  in 
energy  and  brains  as  in  body,  and  they  rushed  the 
capital  as  if  it  had  been  a  football. 

Lincoln  from  the  start  of  their  dash  showed  a 
shrewdness,  a  quickness  of  wit,  and  a  power  of  per 
suasion  that  delighted  the  "Long  Nine"  as  much 
as  it  dismayed  the  rival  delegations.  He  had  a  qual 
ity  of  great  value  in  politics,  and  that  was  a  sense 
of  what  the  other  fellow  would  probably  do ;  it  made 
it  possible  for  him  to  get  ahead  of  him.  To  secure 
the  prize  for  Springfield  he  was  willing  to  do  every 
thing  but  be  dishonest.  When  it  came  to  securing 
a  vote  by  promising  something  that  he  could  not  ful 
fill  or  by  a  trade  which  he  felt  to  be  unfair,  the 
"Long  Nine"  soon  learned  that  they  could  not  count 
on  Lincoln.  Urged  at  one  critical  point  in  the  cam 
paign  to  consent  to  a  bit  of  logrolling  which  he  con 
sidered  wrong,  he  broke  forth  in  an  indignant  re 
fusal  that  the  legislators  never  forgot.  It  was  a 
convincing  demonstration  that  you  could  not  buy 
Lincoln. 

Sangamon  County  carried  off  the  capital,  after  a 
lively  fight;  and  it  was  Lincoln's  leadership  that 
did  it,  so  everybody  declared. 

The  people  saw  that  he  was  a  leader,  but  they 
soon  learned  that  when  it  came  to  a  matter  of  con 
viction  he  was  not  the  kind  of  leader  that  steps  softly. 


ZO$  Soy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

In  a  question  of  right  or  wrong,  he  would  go  out 
of  his  way,  if  necessary,  to  let  people  know  his  opin 
ion. 

Illinois  was  much  excited  in  the  late  3o's  over  the 
growth  of  abolition  sentiment  in  the  State.  The 
Assembly,  to  discourage  this,  passed  a  resolution 
saying,  among  other  things,  that  they  heartily  dis 
approved  of  the  formation  of  abolition  societies  and 
of  the  doctrines  taught  by  them,  that  they  believed 
the  right  of  property  in  slaves  to  be  sacred  to  the 
slave-holding  States,  and  that  the  general  govern 
ment  had  no  power  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  District 
of  Columbia,  as  the  Abolitionists  were  asking  should 
be  done. 

Lincoln  and  one  of  his  friends  refused  to  vote 
for  this  resolution;  and,  not  content  with  that,  they 
put  in  a  protest  declaring  that  while  they  believed 
the  institution  of  slavery  to  be  founded  on  both  in 
justice  and  bad  policy,  they  considered  that  abolition 
agitation  tended  rather  to  increase  than  to  abate  its 
evils.  They  added  that  Congress,  in  their  judg 
ment,  did  have  the  right  to  abolish  slavery  in  the 
District  of  Columbia,  although  it  had  not  power 
to  interfere  with  it  in  the  States  where  it  then 
existed. 

It  took  a  brave  man  to  take  this  stand  publicly 
at  that  moment.  Lincoln  might  easily  have  said 
nothing  and  quieted  his  conscience  simply  by  a  vote, 
but  he  preferred  to  make  it  clear  to  every  one  just 
where  he  stood  on  every  point  in  the  dispute. 

That  is,  before  his  service  in  the  legislature  was 
over,  he  had  definitely  stamped  on  the  minds  of 


The  Call  of  His  Country  103 

people  of  his  State  the  kind  of  politician  he  was 
— clever,  ingenious,  interested,  long-sighted,  rigidly 
honest,  and  courageous  in  matters  of  right  and 
wrong.  He  showed  these  same  qualities  in  his  cam 
paigning  outside  of  the  Assembly.  No  man  was 
harder  to  trap.  He  was  quick  to  see  the  weakness 
or  the  falsity  of  an  opponent's  argument  or  action, 
and  was  equally  quick  in  his  attack.  He  never  al 
lowed  an  insinuation  against  his  own  political  honor 
to  go  unchallenged.  One  of  his  opponents  once 
hinted  publicly  that  he  knew  things  about  Lincoln 
which,  if  told,  would  ruin  his  chance  of  reelection; 
but  he  liked  the  young  man  and  would  do  him  the 
favor  of  not  telling. 

Lincoln  lost  no  time  in  replying  to  this  sneaking 
attack. 

"No  one  has  needed  favors  more  than  I,"  he 
wrote  the  gentleman,  "and  generally  few  have  been 
less  unwilling  to  accept  them,  but  in  this  case  favor 
to  me  would  be  injustice  to  the  public,  and  therefore 
I  beg  your  pardon  for  declining  it.  If  I  have  done 
anything,  by  design  or  by  misadventure,  which,  if 
known,  would  subject  me  to  forfeiture  of  the  con 
fidence  of  the  people  of  Sangamon  County,  he  that 
knows  that  thing  and  conceals  it  is  a  traitor  to  his 
country's  interests.  I  find  myself  wholly  unable  to 
form  any  conjecture  of  what  fact  or  facts,  real  or 
supposed,  you  speak.  I  am  flattered  with  the  re 
gard  you  manifest  for  me,  but  I  do  hope  that  on 
mature  reflection  you  will  view  the  public  interest  as 
of  paramount  consideration  and  therefore  let  the 
worst  come. 


IO4  Boy  Scouts9  Life  of  Lincoln 

"I  wish  an  answer  to  this,  and  you  are  at  liberty 
to  publish  both  if  you  choose." 

He  never  got  an  answer,  and  the  gentleman 
stopped  his  hinting. 

On  another  occasion,  after  Lincoln  had  made  a 
very  able  speech,  sustaining  the  Whigs  against  their 
great  rival  of  those  days,  the  Democrats,  a  promi 
nent  Democrat — who  had  once  been  a  Whig  and  had 
gone  over  to  the  other  side — angered  by  Lincoln's 
arguments,  proceeded  to  answer  him  in  a  conde 
scending  manner.  "The  young  man  would  have  to 
be  taken  down,"  he  said,  uhe  was  assuming  too 
much.  He  was  sorry,  but  he  would  have  to  do  it." 

He  was  a  much  older  man  than  Lincoln.  He  was 
able  and  prosperous,  owning  the  best  house  in 
Springfield  and  the  only  one  which  carried  a  light 
ning  rod.  Lincoln,  indignant  at  the  patronizing 
tone  of  his  opponent,  answered  him. 

"The  gentleman  announced  that  the  young  man 
would  have  to  be  taken  down,"  he  said.  "It  is 
for  my  fellow  citizens,  not  for  me,  to  say  whether  I 
am  to  be  up  or  down.  I  desire  to  live,  and  I  desire 
place  and  distinction;  but  I  would  rather  die  than, 
like  the  gentleman,  live  to  see  the  day  that  I  would 
change  my  politics  for  an  office  worth  three  thou 
sand  dollars  a  year  and  then  feel  compelled  to  erect 
a  lightning  rod  to  protect  a  guilty  conscience  from 
an  offended  God." 

Whig  Springfield  and  Sangamon  County  went  wild 
over  the  reply,  and  the  gentleman  for  the  rest  of 
his  life  never  appeared  in  a  political  group  that 
somebody  did  not  say  "Lightning  Rod." 


The  Call  of  His  Country  105 

Lincoln's  skill  in  making  his  political  enemies  ri 
diculous  sometimes  led  him  a  little  far.  He  was 
frequently  merciless  when  he  found  he  could  tease 
a  political  opponent.  Once  he  narrowly  escaped 
ruining  his  political  future  by  indulging  this  pro 
pensity. 

Among  the  Democratic  officials  of  the  State  in 
1842  was  James  Shields,  a  quick-tempered  Irish 
man,  courageous  but  vain  and  overconfident — just 
the  kind  of  game  that  Lincoln  loved  to  hunt.  The 
Whigs  at  that  moment  were  very  much  disturbed 
because  the  Democratic  officials  had  decided  that 
State  taxes  could  not  be  paid  in  State  bank  notes  but 
must  be  paid  in  silver.  There  was  a  reason  for  this. 
The  State's  money  had  greatly  depreciated  largely 
because  of  the  extravagant  schemes  for  internal  im 
provement  that  the  legislature  had  voted  in  its  re 
cent  sessions — schemes  in  which  Lincoln  had  taken 
his  full  part.  The  State  officers  did  not  propose  to  be 
paid  in  depreciated  currency.  The  Whigs  con 
tended  that  this  was  disloyal,  and  Lincoln  attacked 
the  order  in  a  letter  to  the  local  Whig  paper,  signed 
"Aunt  Rebecca."  In  this  letter  he  ridiculed  Shields' 
swagger  and  vanity. 

Shields  was  furious  at  being  selected  as  the  target 
for  Democratic  policies.  The  matter,  however, 
might  have  passed  off  without  any  serious  conse 
quences  if  two  young  ladies  in  the  town — one  of 
whom,  Mary  Todd,  afterward  became  Lincoln's 
wife — had  not  seized  this  opportunity  to  poke  still 
further  fun  at  Shields.  He  was  a  gallant  man — too 
gallant,  so  the  young  ladies  of  Springfield  thought 


106  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

— and  under  the  same  signature  that  Lincoln  had 
used,  "Aunt  Rebecca,"  they  sent  several  letters  to 
the  paper. 

When  Shields  read  these,  his  anger  knew  no 
bounds.  He  was  going  to  challenge  the  man  that 
was  guilty  of  them,  and  demanded  his  name  from 
the  editor.  The  editor,  not  willing  to  bring  the 
young  ladies  into  the  trouble,  appealed  to  Lincoln. 
"Give  him  my  name,"  Lincoln  said,  "and  in  no  case 
that  of  the  girls." 

Without  approaching  Lincoln  as  to  whether  or 
not  he  really  was  the  author  of  the  articles,  Shields 
wrote  an  angry  letter,  demanding  a  "full,  positive, 
and  absolute  retraction  of  all  offensive  allusions," 
as  well  as  an  apology  for  what  he  declared  were 
insults.  Unless  this  was  forthcoming  at  once,  then 
Lincoln  must  take  the  consequences,  which,  of  course, 
meant  a  duel. 

Lincoln  was  calm  enough.  He  sent  back  word 
that  since  Shields  had  not  taken  the  trouble  to  ask 
him  whether  or  no  he  was  the  author  of  the  arti 
cles,  had  not  pointed  out  what  was  offensive  in 
them,  and  had  threatened  consequences,  he  could 
not  answer:  that  he  must  either  withdraw  this  note 
or  submit  a  challenge.  Shields  was  altogether  too 
angry  to  withdraw,  and  a  challenge  was  forth 
coming. 

According  to  usage,  this  left  with  Lincoln,  the 
challenged  party,  the  choice  of  weapons,  position, 
time,  and  place.  He  promptly  laid  them  down.  In 
reading  them,  remember  that  Shields  was  a  little 
man,  with  a  reach  of  arm  that  went  with  his  height; 


The  Call  of  His  Country  107 

that  Lincoln  was  six  feet  four,  with  an  unusually 
long  arm: 

"First.  Weapons:  Cavalry  broadswords  of  the 
largest  size,  precisely  equal  in  all  respects,  and  such 
as  now  used  by  the  cavalry  company  at  Jacksonville. 

"Second.  Position:  A  plank  ten  feet  long,  and 
from  nine  to  twelve  inches  broad,  to  be  firmly  fixed 
on  edge,  on  the  ground,  as  the  line  between  us, 
which  neither  is  to  pass  his  foot  over  on  forfeit 
of  his  life.  Next  a  line  drawn  on  the  ground  on 
either  side  of  said  plank  and  parallel  with  it,  each 
at  the  distance  of  the  whole  length  of  the  sword  and 
three  feet  additional  from  the  plank;  and  the  pass 
ing  of  his  own  such  line  by  either  party  during  the 
fight  shall  be  deemed  a  surrender  of  the  contest. 

"Third.  Time:  On  Thursday  evening  at  five 
o'clock,  if  you  can  get  it  so ;  but  in  no  case  to  be  at 
a  greater  distance  of  time  than  Friday  evening  at 
five  o'clock. 

"Fourth.  Place :  Within  three  miles  of  Alton,  on 
the  opposite  side  of  the  river  (the  Mississippi),  the 
particular  spot  to  be  agreed  on  by  you." 

There  was  nothing  to  do  but  for  Shields  to  ac 
cept;  and  indeed,  in  his  temper,  he  asked  nothing 
better. 

On  the  day  set,  the  duelists  with  their  seconds 
drove  their  old-fashioned  buggies  into  Alton,  broad 
swords  rattling  on  the  bottom.  They  promptly 
crossed  the  river  to  a  sand  bar  belonging  to  the 
Missouri  mainland.  Things  looked  very  serious. 
The  rumor  that  a  duel  was  to  be  fought  spread 
around  Alton,  and  numbers  of  people  came  down 


io8  Boy  Scouts9  Life  of  Lincoln 

to  the  banks  and  a  few  who  could  get  skiffs  started 
to  row  to  the  scene. 

Lincoln  was  very  grave.  He  made  no  jokes  now. 
Indeed,  some  of  his  friends  believed  that  he  was 
beginning  to  be  frightened,  so  quiet  was  he;  but 
presently  one  of  them  saw  him  reach  over  and  pick 
up  one  of  the  swords,  draw  it  from  its  scabbard, 
and  feel  along  the  weapon  with  his  finger  as  a  barber 
feels  the  edge  of  his  razor.  Then  rising,  he  stretched 
out  his  long  arm  and  clipped  off  a  twig  from  a 
branch  high  above  his  head.  There  was  not  a  man 
in  the  party  who  could  reach  anywhere  near  that 
twig,  and  the  absurdity  of  that  long-reaching  fel 
low  fighting  with  Shields,  who  could  walk  under  his 
arm,  almost  drove  his  seconds  into  hysterics. 

The  plank  had  been  set,  the  lines  drawn,  when 
suddenly  from  across  the  Mississippi  there  appeared 
a  group  of  influential  friends  and  acquaintances  of 
both  men.  They  had  heard  rumors  of  what  was 
going  on,  and  realizing  what  a  tragedy  might  re 
sult,  had  hastened  to  Alton,  arriving  just  in  the  nick 
of  time.  Taking  Shields  aside,  by  dint  of  per 
suasion  and  argument  they  induced  him  to  withdraw 
his  first  note.  After  that  it  was  easy  to  adjust  the 
trouble  "with  honor  to  all  concerned" ;  and  it  was 
not  long  before  the  duelists  were  on  their  way  home, 
chatting  pleasantly. 

The  party  did  not  come  back  to  the  Illinois  shore, 
however,  without  playing  a  practical  joke  on  the 
crowd  that  had  gathered  on  the  banks.  As  they 
approached,  the  watchers  saw  lying  in  the  bottom 
of  one  of  the  boats  what  seemed  to  be  a  bloody 


The  Call  of  His  Country  109 

figure.  Beside  him  sat  friends,  one  of  them  with 
a  big  fan  which  he  was  diligently  plying.  There  was 
great  excitement  on  the  shore  as  to  whether  it  was 
Lincoln  or  Shields  that  was  wounded.  But  as  the 
boat  drew  up  they  saw  the  supposed  man  was  a  big 
log  covered  with  a  red  flannel  shirt;  and  that  Lin 
coln  and  Shields,  both  of  them  sound,  were  heartily 
enjoying  the  joke  played  on  the  crowd. 

It  was  a  lucky  escape  for  Lincoln.  "I  didn't  in 
tend  to  hurt  Shields,"  he  told  one  of  his  friends, 
"unless  I  did  so  clearly  in  self-defense.  If  it  had 
been  necessary,  I  could  have  split  him  from  the 
crown  of  his  head  to  the  end  of  his  backbone."  It 
was  a  good  lesson  for  him — one  that  he  needed.  He 
never  got  over  being  ashamed  of  the  affair  and  when 
it  was  mentioned  his  friends  noted  that  he  was  very 
quick  to  divert  attention  by  telling  a  story  that  led 
in  some  other  direction.  And  never  in  his  later 
history  do  we  find  him  provoking  an  antagonist  by 
ridicule  in  his  early  merciless  way. 

The  episode  had  a  bearing,  he  soon  found,  on 
his  political  fortunes.  He  had  refused  reelection 
to  the  legislature  in  1 840,  thinking  that  the  time  had 
come  when  he  might  take  the  next  step  upward  in 
his  political  career;  that  is,  seek  an  election  to  Con 
gress.  There  was  every  reason  for  him  to  believe 
that  he  would  be  successful.  His  popularity,  par 
ticularly  in  his  own  county,  was  great,  he  was  be 
coming  throughout  the  State  more  and  more  a  fa 
vorite  for  serious  political  discussions.  His  friends 
were  warm  and  sympathetic  with  his  ambition,  and 
so  in  1842  he  tried  for  the  nomination. 


no  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

But  he  was  not  the  only  man  in  the  Whig  party 
that  wanted  the  nomination  to  Congress.  There 
were  two  other  candidates,  intimate  friends  of  his 
— Edward  D.  Baker  and  John  J.  Hardin,  Both  of 
them  were  men  of  honor,  popular  in  the  community, 
excellent  lawyers.  Here  was  a  new  test  for  Lin 
coln.  What  would  he  do  now  that  he  had  friends 
as  rivals?  Would  he  sacrifice  them  to  his  ambi 
tion?  Could  he  keep  his  ambition  and  keep  his 
friends?  How  was  a  man  to  act  in  such  a  situa 
tion?  Lincoln  soon  discovered  how  serious  a  trial 
he  had  before  him — a  trial  which  was  going  to  prove 
just  how  stanch  his  loyalty  was,  just  how  genuine 
his  honor. 

In  the  first  move  in  the  campaign  in  1842,  he 
lost;  that  is,  he  was  defeated  by  his  own  Sangamon 
delegation,  Baker  being  selected  in  his  place.  One 
reason  for  his  defeat  was  that  he  was  a  duelist. 
Public  opinion  was  severe  against  the  practice,  which 
still  prevailed  in  some  parts  of  the  country  and  which 
right-thinking  people  were  doing  their  utmost  en 
tirely  to  destroy.  Lincoln  was  not  at  all  embit 
tered  by  his  friend's  success,  but  threw  himself  heart 
ily  into  the  campaign  to  elect  him.  When  they  came 
to  the  convention  where  the  matter  was  decided,  it 
was  not  Baker  but  the  third  in  the  trio,  Hardin,  who 
was  nominated.  Lincoln  took  quick  action.  There 
were  three  of  them,  all  wanting  to  go  to  Congress. 
Why  should  they  not  take  turns?  And  he  asked 
that  the  convention  put  itself  on  record  as  favoring 
Baker — not  himself,  notice,  but  Baker — for  the 
next  session  that  of  1844.  This  was  quickly  done, 


The  Call  of  His  Country  ill 

although  Hardin's  friends  resented  the  maneuver. 
It  made  a  second  term  for  their  candidate  out  of 
the  question. 

In  1844  Lincoln  did  not  present  himself  but 
worked  as  persistently  for  Baker  as  he  would  have 
done  for  himself.  Baker  was  elected,  and  almost 
at  once  Lincoln  began  to  lay  the  foundation  for  his 
own  nomination  in  1846.  He  was  convinced  that 
the  principle  of  "turn  about  is  fair  play"  applied  to 
this  case.  Baker's  friends  had  accepted  it.  He  had 
rather  taken  it  for  granted  that  Hardin  and  his 
friends  accepted  it,  but  he  had  not  been  long  work 
ing  on  his  campaign  before  he  discovered  that  here 
he  was  wrong,  that  Hardin  really  wanted  a  renomU 
nation.  Lincoln  was  hurt,  and  a  little  indignant. 

"If  neither  of  us  had  been  to  Congress,"  he  told 
his  friends,  "or  if  we  both  had,  it  would  only  ac 
cord  with  what  I  have  always  done,  for  the  sake 
of  peace,  to  give  way  to  him;  and  I  expect  I  should 
do  it.  But  to  yield  to  Hardin  under  present  circum 
stances  seems  to  me  as  nothing  less  than  yielding  to 
one  who  would  gladly  sacrifice  me  altogether.  This 
I  would  rather  not  submit  to."  Sore  as  he  felt,  he 
was  determined  that  there  should  be  no  quarrel,  and 
he  constantly  warned  his  friends  not  to  criticize 
Hardin — "Nothing  can  be  said  against  him,"  he 
kept  declaring.  "He  is  talented,  energetic,  unusu 
ally  generous,  and  magnanimous.  Make  no  argu 
ment  but  that  'turn  about  is  fair  play.'  '  Fortu 
nately,  Hardin  was  magnanimous,  and  when  he 
realized  how  much  his  rival  was  taking  the  matter 
to  heart,  he  withdrew. 


112  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

At  the  next  election,  1846,  Lincoln's  ambition  was 
realized:  he  was  a  congressman. 

It  was  in  November  of  1847  tnat  he  started  for 
Washington.  It  was  an  exciting  trip  for  him,  for 
never  before  had  he  been  farther  east  than  Indiana. 
The  only  cities  that  he  had  seen  up  to  that  time 
were  New  Orleans  and  St.  Louis :  Chicago  was  still 
too  small,  too  much  of  a  home  product  to  be  counted 
as  a  city.  Washington  itself  was  not  much  more 
than  a  big  rambling  village.  The  wings  of  the 
Capitol  had  not  been  built.  The  dome  and  the 
great  terraces  were  unfinished.  Washington's 
monument  was  only  halfway  up.  Most  of  the  pop 
ulation  lived  on  Capitol  Hill  and  the  near-by  streets. 
The  great  development  out  toward  the  northwest 
had  not  yet  begun.  The  streets  were  unpaved.  It 
was  a  barren,  slovenly  town;  but  nothing  of  this 
Lincoln  realized.  It  was  the  capital  of  the  country 
he  loved  to  which  he  was  going,  and  it  was  among 
the  men  who  were  running  that  country  that  he 
was  now  to  sit. 

He  was  not  long  in  making  friends.  His  kindli 
ness,  his  gift  for  story-telling,  his  sound  sense,  and 
.thorough  familiarity  with  both  the  history  and  the 
affairs  of  the  land,  as  well  as  his  skill  in  argument, 
men  quickly  noted,  and  because  of  them  sought  his 
acquaintance.  Daniel  Webster,  whose  Sunday- 
morning  breakfasts  were  among  the  most  popular 
social  affairs  in  Washington,  soon  was  asking  Lin 
coln  as  a  regular  guest.  He  was  asked  to  join  the 
"Young  Indian  Club" — a  group  of  congressmen  in 
terested  in  the  discussion  of  national  questions.  It 


The  Call  of  His  Country  113 

was  in  this  club  that  he  first  debated  with  older  and 
abler  men  the  idea  of  State  sovereignty,  one  of  his 
chief  antagonists  being  Alexander  Stephens,  a  man 
who,  later,  was  to  be  a  leader  in  the  effort  to  prove 
by  force  the  soundness  of  this  idea. 

The  newspaper  correspondents,  too,  discovered 
Lincoln,  and  reported  him  as  the  best  story-teller 
in  Congress.  One  of  his  favorite  haunts,  and  one 
where  he  made  many  friends  among  public  men,  was 
a  bowling  alley.  Lincoln  never  was  long  in  a  place 
that  he  did  not  look  for  some  active  sport.  Bowl 
ing  gave  him  just  what  he  wanted,  and  as  often  as 
it  was  possible  for  him  to  find  time  he  joined  the 
matched  games  in  an  alley  on  Capitol  Hill,  near  the 
boarding  house  where  he  lived  with  many  other  mem 
bers  of  Congress.  He  was  an  awkward  bowler  but 
played  with  great  zest,  and  solely  for  exercise  and 
amusement.  He  always  took  success  or  defeat  with 
equal  good  nature.  His  playing  was  punctuated  by 
amusing  comments  and  illustrations.  The  fame  of 
him  as  a  bowler  soon  spread,  and  when  it  was  known 
that  he  was  in  the  alley  people  were  sure  to  gather 
to  listen  to  his  jokes  and  stories. 

He  was  not  slow  in  winning  respect  in  Congress, 
for  he  set  himself  at  once  to  hard  work,  mastering 
the  congressional  procedure,  acquainting  himself 
with  the  men  and  their  methods,  and  thoroughly 
studying  the  questions  on  which  he  must  give  a  vote. 

The  question  which  took  most  of  his  time  was 
the  very  serious  one  of  the  war  with  Mexico  over 
Texas.  He  had  opposed  the  war,  which  had  begun 
in  the  spring  of  1846,  and  had  done  so  from  the 


114  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

start  of  the  quarrel.  He  went  to  Washington,  in 
tending  to  support  the  war  in  every  particular  ex 
cept  that  of  declaring  it  right;  but  the  administra 
tion  wanted  not  only  support,  it  wanted  approval. 
Lincoln  would  not  give  this.  He  not  only  refused 
to  vote  that  he  believed  the  war  justified,  but  he 
boldly  declared  that  the  United  States  had  been  the 
aggressor,  and  he  challenged  the  administration  to 
prove  the  contrary.  It  was  unpopular  talk,  and 
even  in  Springfield,  where  they  knew  his  record  best, 
his  Whig  friends — even  his  friend  and  law  partner, 
Mr.  Herndon — cautioned  him. 

Lincoln  answered  hotly*  "Would  you  have  voted 
what  you  felt  and  knew  to  be  a  lie?  I  know  you 
would  not.  Would  you  have  gone  out  of  the  House 
— skulked  the  vote?  You  are  compelled  to  speak 
and  your  only  alternative  is  to  tell  the  truth  or  a 
lie.  This  vote  has  nothing  to  do  in  determining 
my  votes  on  the  question  of  supplies.  I  have  al 
ways  intended  and  still  intend  to  vote  supplies." 

Unpopular  as  his  position  was  he  persisted  in  it. 
The  Mexican  War  was  wrong,  the  United  States  had 
been  the  aggressor ;  and,  since  this  was  so,  he  would 
not  pretend  otherwise. 

When  the  war  was  won  and  the  great  Western 
territory,  including  not  only  what  we  now  know  as 
Texas  but  New  Mexico  and  California,  was  ad 
mitted  to  the  Union  there  came  to  the  front  the 
question  that  all  thoughtful  men  had  dreaded: 
Was  the  territory  to  be  free  or  slave  ?  It  was  con 
stantly  coming  up  in  Congress.  Lincoln  voted  prob 
ably  forty  times,  in  the  course  of  his  term,  for  mak- 


THE  EARLIEST  KNOWN  PORTRAIT  OF  LINCOLN.    ABOUT  1848.    AGE  39 

From   the   original   daguerreotype   owned   by   Mr.    Lincoln's   son,   the   Hon. 
Robert  T.   Lincoln. 


The  Call  of  His  Country  115 

ing  the  territory  free ;  and  he  boldly  stated  his  posi 
tion  whenever  the  opportunity  allowed.  Not  only 
that,  but,  as  many  of  his  friends  thought,  he  went 
out  of  his  way  to  declare  for  the  exclusion  of  slavery 
from  the  District  of  Columbia. 

In  the  campaign  of  1848  he  kept  this  up;  and 
more  and  more  certain  did  it  become  as  his  term 
drew  to  a  close  that  he  would  not  get  a  chance  for 
renomination  even  if  he  should  ask  it.  His  bold 
ness  was  not  all  that  hurt  him.  It  had  turned  out 
that  he  was  not  a  good  wirepuller,  could  not  get  of 
fices  for  his  friends  in  the  way  they  had  expected. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  Lincoln  was  poor  at  this  kind 
of  business.  If  a  man  did  not  seem  to  him  fit  for 
a  position  he  was  very  liable  to  tell  him  so;  or,  if 
he  did  put  in  his  application,  to  do  it  with  such  a 
candid  statement  of  his  client's  merits  as  to  ruin 
his  chances.  He  had  a  strong  feeling  that  fitness 
was  the  chief  reason  for  giving  a  man  an  office.  He 
could  not  be  an  enthusiastic  supporter  of  anybody 
simply  because  he  owed  him  a  vote.  It  was  under 
something  of  a  cloud,  then — at  least  in  political 
circles — that  he  ended  his  term  in  Congress  in  the 
spring  of  1849  and  came  back  to  Illinois. 

To  be  sure,  he  had  had  a  wonderful  time.  He 
had  seen  not  only  Washington,  but  in  the  campaign 
of  1848,  between  the  two  sessions,  he  had  been 
asked  to  go  to  New  England  to  make  speeches  for 
the  Whig  presidential  candidate,  General  Taylor, 
and  there  he  had  met  a  number  of  prominent  men. 
On  his  way  home  he  had  done  a  little  sight-seeing, 
had  been  to  Niagara  Falls  and  felt  all  of  its  over- 


Ii6  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

whelming  grandeur.  He  planned  some  day  to  tell 
in  a  lecture  what  he  had  seen  and  felt  in  face  of  the 
great  waters,  and  made  notes  which  are  to  be  found 
among  his  published  papers.  After  leaving  Niagara 
he  had  a  little  adventure  that  set  his  wits  working  in 
an  entirely  different  direction. 

The  boat  on  which  he  was  traveling  was  stranded 
on  a  sand  bar.  The  captain  had  ordered  all  the 
empty  barrels  and  boxes  on  board  to  be  forced  un 
der  the  side  of  the  boat.  These  empty  receptacles 
acted  as  a  buoy,  and  in  a  little  time  the  vessel  swung 
clear.  Lincoln  was  greatly  interested  in  the  opera 
tion  and  hardly  was  he  back  in  Springfield  before  he 
began  tinkering  on  a  device  for  taking  care  of  just 
such  an  accident.  He  spent  hours  in  a  little  car 
penter  shop  near  his  office,  working  on  a  model; 
and  finally,  when  he  went  back  to  Washington  for 
the  remainder  of  his  term,  he  took  it  along  and  se 
cured  a  patent.  This  model  sits  on  the  shelves  of 
the  Patent  Office  to-day. 

When  Lincoln  returned  to  Springfield  in  the  spring 
of  1849,  it  looked  as  if  his  political  fortunes  were 
at  an  end.  He  did  not  whine  or  sulk.  He  did  not 
announce  that  he  was  suffering  for  doing  what  he 
thought  was  right.  He  took  what  had  happened 
quietly  and  good-naturedly.  Lincoln  never  had  any 
sympathy  with  people  who  nourished  a  grudge 
against  the  public  for  their  defeats  and  failures.  He 
had  a  law  partner,  younger  than  himself,  who  was 
inclined  to  feel  that  he  was  being  kept  down  in  the 
world  by  older  men.  Mr.  Lincoln  chided  him  for 
his  complaining. 


The  Call  of  His  Country  117 

"The  way  for  a  young  man  to  rise,"  he  told  him, 
"is  to  improve  himself  every  way  he  can,  never  sus 
pecting  that  any  one  wishes  to  hinder  him.  Sus 
picion  and  jealousy  never  did  help  any  man  in  any 
situation.  There  may  sometimes  be  ungenerous  at 
tempts  60  keep  a  young  man  down — and  they  will 
succeed,  too,  if  he  allows  his  mind  to  be  diverted 
from  its  true  channel,  to  brood  over  the  attempted 
injury." 

Lincoln  did  not  brood  now;  he  worked  harder 
than  he  ever  had  before  to  make  a  good  lawyer  of 
himself.  For  the  next  five  years  his  attention  was 
occupied  almost  entirely  with  legal  matters.  If  you 
will  examine  his  published  letters  and  speeches  for 
this  particular  five  years,  and  compare  them  with  the 
periods  of  equal  length  just  before  and  just  after, 
you  will  realize  how  completely  politics  had  dropped 
out  of  his  life.  The  probability  is  that  he  would 
have  gone  on  with  the  law,  giving  no  more  attention 
to  public  affairs  than  any  good  citizen  should  give, 
in  his  judgment,  refusing  public  office  if  it  came  his 
way,  devoted  to  his  profession,  if  there  had  not  sud 
denly  been  presented  to  Congress  a  bill  seeking  to 
overthrow  the  solemn  engagement  known  as  the 
Missouri  Compromise,  into  which  the  people  of  the 
United  States  had  entered  over  thirty  years  before. 
This  compromise  provided  that  there  should  be  no 
slaves  north  of  36°  30'  north  latitude  in  the  vast 
territory  running  from  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  to  Can 
ada  and  as  far  west  as  the  Rocky  Mountains,  bought 
by  the  United  States  in  1803  from  France.  In  Lin 
coln's  judgment,  to  repeal  this  arrangement  was  not 


rli8  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

only  a  violation  of  sacred  obligations  which  the  coun 
try  had  taken,  but  was  directly  opposed  to  the  in 
tent  of  the  men  who  had  founded  the  country. 

What  should  he  do?  To  attack  the  bill  meant 
that  he  must  turn  his  mind  from  his  profession,  that 
he  must  give  time  and  strength  which  he  could  ill 
afford  to  give.  It  was  doubtful  if  there  was  po 
litical  honor  in  the  struggle,  for  he  saw  that  to  take 
the  stand  that  he  must  take  would  be  unpopular  with 
many  of  the  people  of  Illinois.  He  did  not  hesitate. 
Cost  what  it  might,  he  did  not  propose  that  the 
Missouri  Compromise  should  be  repealed,  that  ter 
ritory  long  ago  set  aside  for  freedom  by  the  will  of 
the  people  of  the  country  should  be  open  to  slavery. 

Possibly  he  was  the  more  willing  to  go  into  the 
fight  because  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compro 
mise  had  been  fathered  by  his  strongest  political 
enemy  in  the  State  of  Illinois,  the  man  of  whom  Lin 
coln,  if  he  was  ever  jealous  of  anybody,  was  jealous, 
and  that  was  the  senior  senator  from  Illinois, 
Stephen  A.  Douglas.  If  you  must  fight,  it  is  well  to 
have  an  opponent  that  brings  out  all  your  strength. 
Lincoln  knew  that  he  had  such  an  opponent,  and  he 
made  ready  for  what  was  to  be  the  fight  of  his  life. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  FIGHT  OF   HIS  LIFE 

Thrice  is  he  armed  that  hath  his  quarrel  just. 

SHAKESPEARE. 

WHEN  Lincoln,  in  1854,  went  into  what  was 
to  be  the  fight  of  his  life,  he  did  it  because 
he  believed  that  he  was  right  and  that  if 
he  could  get  a  chance  he  could  make  the  people  of 
Illinois  agree  that  he  was  right.  The  question 
which  stirred  him  so  mightily  was  whether  or  not 
the  United  States  should  allow  slavery  to  be  ex 
tended  into  territory  where  it  did  not  then  exist, 
and  where  it  had  been  agreed  thirty  years  before 
it  should  never  be  allowed  to  go.  Lincoln  believed 
that  this  could  not  lawfully  be  done.  He  knew  that 
the  men  who  organized  the  Union,  the  men  that  we 
speak  of  as  the  "Fathers,"  had  believed  that  if  they 
stopped  the  slave  trade,  as  they  did,  and  shut  up 
slavery  in  a  certain  number  of  states,  it  would  finally 
die  a  natural  death.  That  is,  they  believed  that 
property  if  it  is  to  live  must  have  room  in  which  to 
grow,  also  that  it  must  have  the  tolerance  and 
friendly  recognition  of  all  of  the  people  of  the  coun 
try  where  it  exists.  Lincoln  had  always  held  this 
view. 

At  the  same  time,  he  had  never  agreed  with  the 

119 


I2O  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

Abolitionists  who  were  trying  to  destroy  slavery  in 
the  States  where  it  was  legal.  He  insisted  that  the 
free  States  should  let  the  slavery  of  the  other  States 
alone,  let  it  die  of  itself.  Nor  did  he  hate  the  peo 
ple  of  the  South  as  many  of  the  Abolitionists  did 
because  of  slavery.  They  found  slavery  there  when 
they  were  born,  he  argued.  "They  are  just  what 
we  would  be  in  their  situation.  If  slavery  did  not 
exist  among  them,  they  would  not  introduce  it.  If 
it  did  now  exist  among  us,  we  should  not  instantly 
give  it  up.  I  surely  will  not  blame  them  for  not 
doing  what  I  should  not  know  how  to  do  myself." 

But  if  he  did  not  hate  the  South  he  did  hate  slav 
ery — thought  it  a  terrible  wrong;  and  it  was  be 
cause  of  this  hatred  that  he  was  ready  to  throw  aside 
his  law  practice  in  1854  to  go  into  what  he  realized 
would  be  a  long  and  terrible  struggle. 

The  man  who  had  brought  on  the  fight  was  an  old 
antagonist  of  his,  Stephen  A.  Douglas.  Douglas 
had  walked  into  Illinois  from  the  East,  his  coat  over 
his  arm,  in  those  years  when  Lincoln  was  carrying 
a  log  chain  and  reading  law  at  night.  The  two 
first  came  together  in  1836  in  the  State  Assembly. 
You  could  hardly  find  two  men  more  different  in 
looks  and  in  their  ways  of  getting  on.  Douglas  was 
a  stout  little  man,  only  5  feet  4  inches  tall — Lincoln 
was  6  feet  4 — he  had  a  great  mane  of  black  hair 
and  when  he  spoke  he  often  roared  like  a  lion. 
Douglas  had  all  the  qualities  which  win  men.  He 
was  handsome,  confident,  gay,  eloquent;  and  he  was 
willing  to  go  along  with  anybody  who  would  help 


The  Fight  of  His  Life  121 

him  to  get  what  he  wanted.  He  was  wonderfully 
able  as  a  politician,  adroit  and  brilliant  as  a  speaker; 
but  no  one  would  ever  have  thought  of  applying  to 
him  the  term  which  always  followed  Lincoln,  that 
of  "honest." 

At  the  start  the  two  men  were  rivals.  They  be 
longed  to  the  same  Springfield  debating  club,  where 
they  were  frequently  pitted  against  each  other. 
They  differed  in  politics,  Lincoln  being  a  Whig  and 
Douglas  a  Democrat;  and  in  times  of  campaigning 
spoke  from  the  same  platform  or  followed  each 
other  over  the  same  territory.  They  were  even 
rivals  for  the  hand  of  the  same  woman,  it  is  said, 
the  woman  who  became  later  Mr.  Lincoln's  wife. 
But  Douglas  soon  left  Lincoln  far  behind.  He  was 
given  important  State  offices,  was  elected  to  the  Su 
preme  Bench  of  the  State  and  three  times  to  Con 
gress.  He  was  a  senator  of  the  United  States,  and 
one  of  the  most  distinguished  and  popular  figures 
in  the  country,  when,  in  1847,  Lincoln  arrived  in 
Washington,  an  unknown  man. 

By  1854  Douglas  was  regarded  as  a  future  Presi 
dent.  He  knew  how  good  his  chances  were,  and 
he  was  intent  on  doing  everything  that  he  could  to 
enlarge  them.  To  win  he  must  have  the  favor  of 
the  South.  He  understood  the  desire  of  a  large 
part  of  the  slaveholders  of  the  South  to  have  new 
territory  for  their  property.  He  knew  if  he  could 
give  it  to  them  that  he  would  have  their  support. 
At  that  time  he  was  the  head  of  the  Senate  commit 
tee  on  territorial  organization.  Two  new  territo- 


122  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

ries,  Kansas  and  Nebraska — both  of  which,  you  will 
remember,  were  inside  the  line  which  by  the  Mis 
souri  Compromise  was  to  be  forever  free — wanted 
to  be  organized.  It  was  the  business  of  his  com 
mittee  to  introduce  a  bill  arranging  this.  Douglas 
tacked  on  to  this  bill  an  amendment  which  left  it  to 
the  people  of  the  territories,  and  to  the  new  States 
which  might  be  formed  from  them,  to  decide  whether 
they  wanted  to  be  free  or  slave.  "This  was  right," 
he  said,  "it  was  popular  sovereignty."  A  little  later 
he  consented,  rather  reluctantly,  to  a  second  amend 
ment  repealing  the  Missouri  Compromise. 

When  the  North  learned  of  Douglas'  action,  it 
broke  out  in  anger  and  revolt.  Particularly  was 
Illinois  amazed  and  indignant.  He  was  their  man, 
their  great  man,  their  "Little  Giant,"  as  they  popu 
larly  called  him.  Could  it  be  possible  that  he  had 
so  misunderstood  their  feeling  about  slavery  that  he 
would  wantonly,  and  apparently  for  no  other  rea 
son  than  to  increase  his  own  popularity  in  a  section 
of  the  country  which  naturally  mistrusted  him  be 
cause  he  was  a  Northern  man,  break  a  contract  which 
most  of  them  regarded  as  sacred  as  the  articles  of 
the  Constitution? 

As  we  have  seen,  nobody  was  more  stirred  by  the 
news  of  the  repeal  than  Abraham  Lincoln.  He 
could  think  of  nothing  else.  He  went  over  in  his 
mind  the  whole  experience  of  the  country  with  slav 
ery — the  efforts  to  confine  it,  the  efforts  to  spread 
it,  the  bitterness  that  had  been  born  in  both  North 
and  South  because  of  the  struggle.  Would  it  never 
rest?  Was  the  hope  and  belief  of  the  "Fathers" 


The  Fight  of  His  Life  123 

that  if  it  were  confined  it  would  ultimately  die  of 
itself — a  false  hope  ?  Must  this  dangerous  struggle 
go  on  forever? 

As  he  went  about  the  circuit,  he  talked  of  noth 
ing  else.  It  was  the  last  thing  at  night  and  the  first 
thing  in  the  morning.  He  was  gradually  coming, 
in  his  own  mind,  to  a  conclusion,  terrible  to  himself 
and  so  terrible  to  others  that  many  of  his  best  friends 
refused  to  listen  to  him  when  he  talked  of  it — and 
that  was,  that  it  was  impossible  for  the  Union  to 
exist  half  slave  and  half  free.  Once  on  the  circuit, 
one  of  his  friends  tells  of  waking  up  early  in  the 
morning  and  seeing  him  sitting  on  the  edge  of  the 
bed  in  his  long  nightshirt.  "I  tell  you,"  Lincoln 
broke  out  when  he  saw  his  friend  was  awake,  "this 
country  cannot  exist  much  longer  half  slave  and  half 
free."  "Oh,  go  to  sleep,  Lincoln,"  his  friend  re 
plied. 

Douglas  came  back  in  the  fall,  after  he  had  put 
through  his  Kansas-Nebraska  bill,  as  it  came  to  be 
called,  to  try  to  explain  to  the  Illinois  people  what 
he  had  done.  He  started  in  Chicago,  and  they 
howled  him  down,  though  he  fought  half  the  night 
with  them.  It  was  a  new  experience  for  the  "Little 
Giant,"  accustomed  as  he  had  always  been  to  ap 
plause  and  congratulations.  But  he  was  no  coward ; 
and  he  started  out  through  the  State  to  defend  him- 
self. 

In  October  he  came  to  Springfield.  It  was  the 
week  of  the  State  fair,  and  he  had  a  great  audience, 
on  which  he  used  all  his  tremendous  power  of  elo 
quence  and  persuasion.  "Why,  why,"  he  pleaded, 


124  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

"should  any  one  object  to  allowing  the  people  of  a 
State  to  regulate  their  own  affairs,  to  choose  the 
kind  of  property  they  want — have  slaves  or  not? 
Was  not  that  their  right?" 

Lincoln  had  been  asked  to  answer  Douglas.  His 
speech,  four  hours  long,  is  one  of  the  most  impor 
tant  of  his  life,  for  in  it  he  marshaled  like  a  general 
the  army  of  arguments  he  had  been  gathering  in  his 
months  of  hard  thinking.  The  result  was  an  amaze 
ment  to  everybody,  friend  or  foe,  and  particularly 
did  it  take  hold  of  young  men.  Among  those  in 
his  audience  was  a  boy  of  twenty,  Horace  White  by 
name.  This  boy  had  never  in  his  life  heard  any 
thing  before  that  so  moved  him;  and  years  later, 
when  he  had  become  one  of  the  most  influential 
editors  in  this  country,  he  drew  a  picture  of  the  scene, 
which  you  can  take  as  a  true  picture  of  Lincoln  not 
only  at  this  time,  but  in  other  great  speeches  which 
he  was  to  make. 

"It  was  a  warmish  day  in  early  October,"  Hor 
ace  White  says,  "and  Mr.  Lincoln  was  in  his  shirt 
sleeves  when  he  stepped  on  the  platform.  I  ob 
served  that,  although  awkward,  he  was  not  in  the 
least  embarrassed.  He  began  in  a  low  and  hesitat 
ing  manner,  but  without  any  mistakes  of  language, 
dates,  or  facts.  It  was  evident  that  he  had  mas 
tered  his  subject,  that  he  knew  what  he  was  going 
to  say,  and  that  he  knew  he  was  right.  He  had  a 
thin,  high-pitched,  falsetto  voice  of  much  carrying 
power,  and  could  be  heard  a  long  distance  in  spite 
of  the  bustle  and  tumult  of  the  crowd.  He  had  the 
accent  and  pronunciation  peculiar  to  his  native  State, 


The  Fight  of  His  Life  125 

Kentucky.  Gradually  he  warmed  up  with  his  sub 
ject,  his  angularity  disappeared,  and  he  passed  into 
that  attitude  of  unconscious  majesty  that  is  so  con 
spicuous  in  Saint  Gaudens'  statue  at  the  entrance 
of  Lincoln  Park  in  Chicago.  .  .  .  Progressing  with 
his  theme,  his  words  began  to  come  faster  and  his 
face  to  light  up  with  the  rays  of  genius  and  his  body 
to  move  in  unison  with  his  thoughts.  His  gestures 
were  made  with  his  body  and  head  rather  than  with 
his  arms.  They  were  the  natural  expression  of  the 
man,  and  so  perfectly  adapted  to  what  he  was  say 
ing  that  anything  different  would  have  been  quite  in 
conceivable.  Sometimes  his  manner  was  very  im 
passioned,  and  he  seemed  transfigured  with  his  sub 
ject.  Perspiration  would  stream  down  his  face,  and 
each  particular  hair  would  stand  on  end.  ...  In 
such  transfigured  moments  as  these  he  was  the  type 
of  the  Hebrew  prophet. 

"I  heard  the  whole  speech.  It  was  superior  to 
Webster's  reply  to  Hayne,  because  its  theme  is 
loftier  and  its  scope  wider.  ...  I  think  also  that 
Lincoln's  speech  is  the  superior  of  the  two  as  an 
example  of  English  style.  It  lacks  something  of  the 
smooth,  compulsive  flow  which  takes  the  intellect 
captive  in  the  Websterian  diction,  but  it  excels  in 
the  simplicity,  directness,  and  lucidity  which  appeal 
both  to  the  intellect  and  to  the  heart.  The  speech 
made  so  profound  an  impression  on  me  that  I  feel 
under  its  spell  to  this  day." 

A  few  days  later  the  two  men  met  again,  this  time 
at  Peoria;  and  went  over  the  same  arguments. 
Douglas  sat  in  the  front  row  and  heard  Lincoln  an- 


126  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

swer  his  eloquent  plea  to  let  each  State  decide  what 
kind  of  property  it  wanted — to  govern  itself  as  it 
pleased. 

"What  Mr.  Douglas  means,"  retorted  Lincoln, 
"is  that  as  you  do  not  object  to  my  taking  my  hog  to 
Nebraska  therefore  I  must  not  object  to  your  taking 
your  slave.  I  admit  this  is  perfectly  logical  if  there 
is  no  difference  between  hogs  and  negroes.  .  .  . 
The  doctrine  of  self-government  is  right,  but  it  has 
no  application  as  here  attempted.  When  the  white 
man  governs  himself,  that  is  self-government;  but 
when  he  governs  himself  and  also  governs  another 
man,  that  is  not  self-government,  that  is  despotism. 
No  man  is  good  enough  to  govern  another  man  with 
out  that  man's  consent.  I  say  this  is  the  leading 
principle,  the  sheet  anchor  of  American  Republi 


canism." 


Lincoln's  terrible  seriousness,  the  closeness  of  his 
argument,  the  intentness  of  his  great  audience,  filled 
Douglas,  listening  there  in  the  front  row,  with 
alarm.  Lincoln  was  digging  under  his  foundations. 
If  he  kept  this  up,  he  saw  that  his  own  house  might 
be  falling  over  his  head.  And  so,  after  the  lecture, 
he  said  to  him,  "Lincoln,  you  are  giving  me  more 
trouble  in  debate  than  all  the  United  States  Senate. 
Let's  quit  and  go  home."  And  Lincoln,  always  ami 
able — too  amiable,  his  friends  said — agreed. 

It  was  the  end  of  the  first  round  of  the  fight,  and 
the  honors  were  not  with  the  great  champion;  they 
were  with  his  unknown  challenger. 

But  if  Douglas  had  any  idea  that  when  Lincoln 
accepted  his  suggestion  that  they  "quit  and  go 


The  Fight  of  His  Life  127 

home**  it  was  to  be  the  end  of  the  fight,  he  soon 
saw  his  mistake,  for  Lincoln  went  to  work  like  a 
beaver  to  elect  to  office  every  candidate  in  Illinois, 
Democrat  or  Whig,  opposed  to  the  repeal  of  the 
Missouri  Compromise.  He  began  by  offering  him 
self  for  the  State  Assembly,  and  was  elected.  Think 
ing  he  had  a  chance  to  be  made  senator,  he  resigned 
and  went  out  campaigning,  speaking  only  on  the  sub 
ject  which  had  set  his  mind  and  soul  aflame.  When 
he  found  that  he  could  not  be  nominated,  but  that 
an  anti-Nebraska  Democrat  who  was  running  against 
a  Douglas  Democrat  could  be  if  he  gave  up  his 
chance,  he  did  it.  "Never  mind  about  me,"  he  told 
his  friends.  "We  will  have  an  anti-Nebraska  sena 
tor  in  Washington  to  fight  Douglas." 

Douglas,  watching  from  Washington,  saw  that, 
as  the  months  went  on,  the  opposition  to  him  in 
Illinois  was  growing  more  and  more  serious.  It 
was  no  longer  a  matter  of  scattered  groups  in  the 
different  political  parties ;  these  groups  were  getting 
together.  In  May,  1856,  at  Bloomington,  they  pub 
licly  broke  from  their  old  moorings  and  formed  a 
new  party — the  Republican. 

Douglas  realized  how  much  Lincoln  had  to  do 
with  the  making  of  this  organization  and  its  plat 
form  ;  he  knew,  too,  that  it  was  Lincoln  who  at  this 
meeting,  when  the  organization  was  completed,  had 
made  a  speech  that  had  brought  his  audience  to  its 
feet  again  and  again  with  wild  cheering — a  speech 
so  eloquent,  passionate,  and  sincere  that  the  very 
reporters  taking  notes  for  their  newspapers  threw 
down  their  pencils,  forgot  what  they  were  there  for 


128  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

and  at  the  end  found  themselves  standing  on  the 
tables,  shouting  at  the  top  of  their  lungs. 

Because  of  their  excitement,  no  report  was  made 
for  the  newspapers  and  all  over  Illinois  the  speech 
was  known  as  "Lincoln's  Lost  Speech,"  and  men  who 
heard  it  told,  as  long  as  they  lived,  of  its  greatness. 
His  law  partner,  Mr.  Herndon,  who  like  the  report 
ers,  at  the  end  of  ten  minutes  threw  down  the  pencil 
with  which  he  was  taking  notes,  declared  that  "If 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  6  feet  and  4  inches  high  usually,  at 
Bloomington  that  day  he  was  7  feet  and  inspired  at 
that." 

An  exciting  summer  followed  the  convention. 
The  Republicans  had  their  first  full  ticket — State  and 
national — in  the  field,  and  the  Illinois  men  of 
different  parties  who  had  united  at  Bloomington 
pulled  together  as  if  they  had  been  trained  from 
boyhood  to  the  same  political  harness.  Their  reso 
lution  and  indignation  was  kept  at  white  heat  by 
the  civil  war  that  then  raged  in  Kansas.  The  ter 
ritory  was  soon  to  seek  statehood  under  Douglas' 
bill,  and  between  the  settlers  who  were  determined 
to  make  it  a  slave  State  and  those  who  were  equally 
determined  it  should  remain  free  there  was  open 
warfare. 

In  Illinois  the  Republicans  proclaimed:  "The 
Missouri  Compromise  must  be  restored,  Kansas 
shall  be  free."  With  such  campaign  cries  in  a  State 
so  devoted  to  Douglas  it  was  wonderful  that  there 
was  no  violence;  and  that  there  was  none  was,  in 
no  small  measure,  due  to  Lincoln  who  constantly 
preached  self-control  to  his  associates  and  in  his 


The  Fight  of  His  Life  129 

speeches  kept  to  the  hard,  cold,  unanswerable  argu 
ments  which  two  years  before  had  made  Douglas 
cry,  "Let  us  quit  and  go  home." 

When  November  came,  the  unbelievable  hap 
pened  in  Illinois — the  new  party  swept  the  State, 
electing  its  whole  ticket.  For  the  first  time  in  his 
history,  Douglas  and  his  followers  were  defeated 
all  along  the  line.  A  few  months  after  the  election 
things  were  made  still  worse  for  him  by  a  decision 
of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  which 
declared  that  the  Missouri  Compromise  and  all  com 
promises  like  it  were  unconstitutional — that  Con 
gress  had  no  power  to  pass  them — that  it  had  no 
power  to  make  territory  free  as  it  had  tried  to  do. 
Slaves  were  property  and  a  man  could  take  his 
property  where  he  wished. 

There  was  a  fresh  uproar  in  Illinois,  as  loud  a 
one  as  there  had  been  over  Douglas'  bill.  Lincoln 
used  the  new  move  of  the  slavery  party  to  strengthen 
the  argument  he  had  been  building  up.  What  was 
this  last  move,  he  asked,  this  Supreme  Court  de 
cision  but  another  timber  for  the  frame  of  a  house 
that  they  were  preparing  to  build?  See  how  ex 
actly  it  fitted  into  the  timber  that  Douglas  had  pre 
pared!  When  we  see  a  lot  of  frame  timbers,  dif 
ferent  portions  of  which  we  know  have  been  gotten 
out  at  different  times  and  places  by  different  work 
men,  joined  together  and  see  them  exactly  make  the 
frame  of  a  house,  we  find  it  impossible  not  to  be 
lieve  that  the  workmen  are  following  a  common 
plan.  That  is,  you  see  that  Lincoln  was  charging 
that  Douglas  and  his  party  were  in  a  conspiracy  to 


130  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

extend  slavery  all  over  the  country,  into  the  old  as 
well  as  the  new  States,  the  North  as  well  as  the 
South.  Many  of  those  who  listened  to  him  said  to 
one  another,  "It  does  look  like  it.  Maybe  Lin 
coln  is  right  when  he  says  we  cannot  exist  much 
longer  half  slave  and  half  free,  that  we  must  become 
all  one  or  all  the  other." 

It  was  a  serious  thing  for  Douglas'  ambition  to 
have  Illinois  turning  against  him  at  this  moment. 
His  term  as  senator  was  about  to  end.  If  he  were 
not  reflected  he  would  probably  not  have  a  chance 
at  the  presidency  in  1860  or  1864  as  he  had  planned. 
He  must  do  something. 

The  chance  came  just  in  the  nick  of  time.  Kan 
sas  was  ready  to  adopt  a  constitution  according  to 
Douglas'  plan.  The  people  were  to  have  a  free 
chance  to  vote  whether  they  should  or  should  not 
have  slavery.  By  an  outrageous  fraud  that  nobody 
denied,  a  constitution  "with  slavery"  was  fixed  on 
them,  and  Douglas'  party — the  President  and  all — 
refused  to  interfere.  Douglas  made  a  terrible  scene 
in  the  Senate,  speaking  for  three  hours,  defying  his 
party  and  declaring  he  would  never  submit.  He 
had  promised  Kansas  that  she  should  be  perfectly 
free  to  choose.  This  had  not  been  a  free  election. 
"Are  you  going  to  force  it  on  them  against  their 
will,"  he  said,  "simply  because  they  would  vote  it 
down  if  you  had  consulted  them?  Is  that  the  mode 
in  which  I  am  called  upon  to  carry  out  the  principle 
of  self-government?  If  Kansas  wants  a  Slave  con 
stitution,"  he  shouted,  "she  has  a  right  to  it;  if  she 
wants  a  Free-State  constitution  she  has  a  right  to 


The  Fight  of  His  Life  131 

it.  It  is  none  of  my  business  which  way  the  slavery 
clause  is  decided,  /  care  not  whether  it  is  voted  up  or 
down." 

All  through  the  North  there  was  great  rejoicing 
over  Douglas'  bold  stand.  He  was  for  fair  play, 
and  many  leading  Republicans  began  to  suggest  tak 
ing  him  into  the  party  if  the  Democrats  threw  him 
over.  They  even  hinted  to  the  Republicans  in  Illi 
nois  that  they  accept  him  as  their  candidate  for 
the  Senate  that  fall.  But  the  Republicans  in  Illinois 
knew  Douglas  too  well.  They  looked  on  the  at 
tack  he  had  made  on  his  party  for  its  stand  in  Kan 
sas  as  a  political  trick  timed  exactly  so  as  to  win 
back  his  old  followers.  They  knew  that  his  revolt 
against  the  fraud  did  not  touch  the  real  question 
which  was  whether  slavery  was  to  be  kept  where  the 
law  had  put  it  or  was  to  be  allowed  to  spread  from 
new  State  to  new  State.  And  their  answer  to  the 
suggestion  that  they  join  with  the  Democrats  in  re 
turning  him  was  to  nominate  Abraham  Lincoln  to 
run  against  him  for  the  Senate. 

Douglas  came  back  to  Illinois  to  make  his  cam 
paign  in  bad  humor.  He  was  uneasy.  The  coun 
try  outside  might  not  know  anything  about  this  man 
he  must  meet;  but  he  did.  He  knew  that  man  had 
a  dangerous  habit  in  debate  of  springing  new  argu-. 
ments  on  you,  of  insisting  you  answer  them,  of  pur 
suing  you  if  you  did  not  or  could  not.  He  had  the 
habit  of  asking  questions  which  if  you  answered  them 
in  one  way  angered  Illinois  and  if  you  answered  them 
in  another  way  angered  the  South.  And,  worst  of 
all,  this  man  was  in  dead  earnest  about  the  righf 


132  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

and  wrong  of  things.  Lincoln  cared  whether  slav 
ery  was  voted  up  or  down.  He  did  not.  If  Lin 
coln  drove  him  too  often  into  a  corner  and  made  the 
people  see  he  did  not  care,  that  would  be  dangerous 
— in  Illinois. 

But  of  all  this  he  gave  no  sign.  He  set  out  in 
a  special  railway  coach,  gay  with  flags,  a  brass  can 
non  mounted  at  the  rear  to  announce  his  approach 
— for  all  the  world  like  a  conquering  hero  on  a  tri 
umphal  march. 

Lincoln  camped  on  his  trail,  traveling  as  he  could 
— now  in  an  ordinary  day  coach,  now  in  the  caboose 
of  a  freight  train,  now  driving  across  country,  ham 
mering  incessantly  at  Douglas'  position.  He  hoped 
to  force  Douglas  to  a  challenge  to  debate.  The 
"Little  Giant"  was  wary.  He  did  not  want  to  speak 
from  the  same  platform  with  his  rival  and  when 
Lincoln  realized  this,  he  became  the  challenger. 
There  was  no  escape ;  but,  instead  of  accepting  Lin 
coln's  proposition  that  they  divide  time  everywhere 
for  the  rest  of  the  campaign,  Douglas  named  places 
at  which  he  would  meet  Lincoln.  These  debates 
were  to  occur  at  intervals  of  about  two  weeks. 

At  last  the  second  round  of  the  great  fight  was 
called. 

The  great  champion  dreaded  it.  "I  shall  have 
my  hands  full,"  he  told  his  friends  privately.  They 
pooh-poohed  at  the  idea  and  boasted  loudly  of  the 
great  show  that  was  coming: 

"The  Little  Giant  chawing  up  Old  Abe." 

Not  a  few  of  Lincoln's  followers,  much  as  they 
admired  him,  dreaded  the  encounter.  Was  Lin- 


The  Fight  of  His  Life  133 

coin,  after  all,  fit  to  meet  this  big  man — this  man 
who  had  always  won,  who  had  long  been  a  United 
States  senator,  who,  right  or  wrong,  probably  would 
be  President  ?  Who  was  Lincoln  that  he  should  ac 
tually  challenge  such  a  man?  Lincoln  felt,  rather 
than  heard,  this  fear  in  his  friends'  minds.  Finally 
one  of  them  told  him  in  Springfield  one  day  that  the 
Republicans  were  looking  forward  to  the  debate 
which  he  had  brought  upon  himself  with  deep  con 
cern.  A  shadow  went  over  Mr.  Lincoln's  face.  It 
quickly  gave  way  to  a  blaze  of  eyes  and  a  quiver 
of  lips. 

"Sit  down,"  he  said  to  his  friend,  "and  let  me 
tell  you  a  story. 

"You  have  seen  two  men  about  to  fight?" 

"Yes,  many  times." 

"Well,  one  of  them  brags  about  what  he  means 
to  do.  He  jumps  high  in  the  air,  cracking  his  heels 
together,  smites  his  fist  and  wastes  his  breath  trying 
to  scare  somebody.  You  see  the  other  fellow,  he 
says  not  a  word."  Here  Mr.  Lincoln's  voice  and 
manner  changed  to  great  earnestness  and  repeat 
ing — "You  see  the  other  man,  he  says  not  a  word. 
His  arms  are  at  his  side,  his  fists  are  closely  doubled 
up,  his  head  is  drawn  to  the  shoulder,  and  his  teeth 
are  set  firm  together.  He  is  saving  his  wind  for 
the  fight,  and  as  sure  as  it  comes  off  he  will  win  it, 
or  die  a-trying." 

If  you  will  take  a  map  and  locate  the  towns  which 
Douglas  had  picked  out  for  the  great  tournament — 
Ottawa,  Freeport,  Jonesboro,  Charlestown,  Gales- 
boro,  Quincy,  Alton — you  will  see  that  by  a  little 


134  Boy  Scouts9  Life  of  Lincoln 

trouble  anybody  in  the  State  could  hear  at  least  one 
of  the  debates.  Nothing  had  ever  happened  in  the 
lives  of  the  boys  of  Illinois  so  exciting.  It  was  like 
the  World  Series.  Everybody  turned  out.  Whole 
neighborhoods  packed  themselves  into  a  prairie 
schooner  or  on  a  hay  wagon  drawn  by  four  or  six 
horses.  They  came  in  buggies,  in  barouches,  on 
horseback,  by  rail,  by  canal;  a  boy  walked  bare 
footed  through  the  dust  for  miles  rather  than  miss  it. 

Most  of  them  carried  their  food  so  that  the  de 
bating  point  was  like  one  grand  picnic — streets, 
fields,  hillsides  crowded  with  campers.  At  every 
corner  were  fakirs  and  hucksters  selling  lemonade 
and  pain  killer,  flags  and  badges,  telling  fortunes  or 
making  stump  speeches. 

The  debates  came  off  in  the  afternoon,  and  long 
before  the  hour  the  great  crowds  would  surge  toward 
the  stand — the  boys  pushing  their  way  to  the  front, 
climbing  to  the  roofs  of  any  near-by  house  or  near 
by  trees. 

For  four  years  these  boys  had  been  listening  to 
the  great  discussion.  They  had  heard  it  at  home, 
at  school,  in  the  streets,  at  political  meetings.  They 
knew  what  it  was  all  about,  and  many  of  them  could 
use  the  arguments  for  or  against  the  extension  of 
slavery  as  skillfully  as  their  fathers,  such  was  the 
constant  training  in  debate  that  their  schools  gave. 
More  than  one  of  them,  too,  had  finished  his  de 
bate  over  the  great  question  with  his  fists.  And 
now  they  were  to  see  the  champions  of  the  two  sides. 
They  were  like  boys  who,  having  for  years  played 
baseball  at  home  and  with  neighboring  teams,  come 


The  Fight  of  His  Life  135 

at  last  to  see  a  game  between  national  champions. 
What  they  were  interested  in  was  the  men,  and  how 
they  did  it,  how  they  handled  themselves  when  they 
came  to  face  each  other. 

Each  boy  had  chosen  his  leader,  and  was  loud  in 
his  praise  of  him.  It  was  natural  that  any  boy 
should  be  proud  to  wear  a  Douglas  badge.  He  was 
their  "great  man" — "the  next  President  of  the 
United  States" — that  was  enough  for  many.  But 
boys  felt  differently  about  Lincoln — they  liked  him, 
liked  him  because  he  liked  them — always  noticed 
them,  talked  to  them  when  he  had  the  chance — in 
deed,  sometimes  even  in  the  rush  of  the  campaign, 
joined  them  for  a  few  minutes  at  ball — told  them 
a  story  or  even  treated  them  at  the  grocery.  Many 
a  boy — and  girl — who  heard  one  or  more  of  the  de 
bates,  loved  to  tell  all  during  life  of  some  little  at 
tention  of  Mr.  Lincoln.  Down  at  Jonesboro,  a  lit 
tle  girl,  all  dressed  up  for  the  great  event,  picked 
her  way  through  the  dust  to  do  an  errand  in  a  gro 
cery  store.  Mr.  Lincoln  sat  inside  and  as  she  passed 
drew  her  to  him.  "She's  an  orphan,"  said  the  store 
keeper.  And  the  great  man  drew  a  dime  from  his 
pocket  and  slipped  it  into  her  hand.  Do  you  sup 
pose  that  she  ever  forgot  that  little  act  of  sympathy 
and  kindness? 

They  liked  his  fun  whether  they  were  for  Doug 
las  or  for  him,  and  many  a  one  always  remembered 
how  at  one  debate  when  it  came  his  turn  to  answer, 
he  slipped  off  his  long  duster  and  said  to  a  young 
girl  beside  him,  "Please  hold  my  coat  while  I  stone 
Stephen." 


136  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

They  liked  the  habit  he  had  of  giving  them  a  smile 
quite  their  own  if  they  came  around  with  their  father 
or  some  grown  friend  at  a  reception.  At  the  last  of 
the  debates  at  Alton,  a  very  much  excited  small  boy, 
"effervescing  with  patriotic  enthusiasm,"  as  he  de 
scribed  himself  later,  by  the  name  of  J.  Henry  Lea, 
went  with  his  father  to  the  hotel  to  congratulate 
Mr.  Lincoln.  A  large  group  of  the  leading  men 
of  Illinois,  men  whose  names  are  a  part  of  the  his 
tory  of  the  country,  surrounded  Mr.  Lincoln,  yet 
when  the  small  boy  was  presented  he  found  time  to 
give  him  not  only  a  cordial  handclasp  but  to  say  a 
few  special  kind  words  to  him.  From  that  hour,  so 
Mr.  Lea  wrote  fifty  years  afterward,  he  was  to  him  a 
"demigod." 

Mr.  Lea  became  later  a  genealogist.  Realizing 
that  Lincoln  was  the  only  great  American  whose  an 
cestry  had  not  been  clearly  established,  and  resent 
ing  that  because  of  ignorance  and  partisanship  so 
much  scandal  and  misrepresentation  had  gathered 
about  it,  he  set  out  to  establish  clearly  by  docu 
ments  the  Lincoln  pedigree.  He  worked  for  nearly 
thirty  years  on  this  task  until  finally  he  was  able  to 
establish  an  unbroken  line  from  the  farm  where 
Lincoln  was  born  in  Kentucky,  back  through  Vir 
ginia,  into  Pennsylvania  and  Massachusetts,  across 
the  ocean  to  England,  and  back  to  one  Robert  Lin 
coln  who  was  born  and  died  in  Hingham,  England, 
in  the  sixteenth  century. 

When  Mr.  Lea  published  this  work  in  1908,  he 
submitted  it  to  the  American  people  whom  Lincoln 
loved  so  well  "as  a  slight  tribute  to  the  memory  of 


The  Fight  of  His  Life  137 

their  best  and  wisest  statesman,  father,  and  friend." 
This  was  the  kind  of  enthusiasm  that  the  debates 
aroused  in  many  a  boy. 

Then  he  was  always  telling  stories  or  giving  il 
lustrations  either  on  the  platform  or  as  he  talked 
to  the  groups  gathered  about  that  stuck  in  a  boy's 
mind.  A  boy  who  heard  Mr.  Lincoln  use  his  fa 
mous  snake  illustration  could  not  fail  to  understand 
why  he  objected  to  taking  slaves  into  new  terri 
tory.  "If  I  saw  a  venomous  snake  crawling  in 
the  road,  any  man  would  say  I  might  seize  the  near 
est  stick  and  kill  it;  but  if  I  found  that  snake  in  bed 
with  my  children,  that  would  be  another  question. 
I  might  hurt  the  children  more  than  the  snake,  and 
it  might  bite  them.  Much  more  if  I  found  it  in 
bed  with  my  neighbor's  children,  and  I  had  bound 
myself  by  a  solemn  compact  not  to  meddle  with  his 
children  under  any  circumstances,  it  would  become 
me  to  let  that  particular  mode  of  getting  rid  of  the 
gentleman  alone.  But  if  there  was  a  bed  newly 
made  up,  to  which  the  children  were  to  be  taken, 
and  it  was  proposed  to  take  a  batch  of  young  snakes 
and  put  them  there  with  them,  I  take  it  no  man  would 
say  there  was  any  question  how  I  ought  to  decide ! 

"That  is  just  the  case.  The  new  territories  are 
the  newly  made  bed  to  which  our  children  are  to  go, 
and  it  lies  with  the  nation  to  say  whether  they  shall 
have  snakes  mixed  up  with  them  or  not.  It  does 
not  seem  as  if  there  could  be  much  hesitation  what 
our  policy  should  be  1" 

One  of  the  things  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was  trying 
hardest  in  the  debates  to  make  Illinois  understand 


138  Boy  Scouts9  Life  of  Lincoln 

was  that  Mr.  Douglas  had  one  kind  of  an  argu 
ment  for  the  North  and  another  for  the  South. 
More  than  one  boy  was  able  to  see  this  by  a  story 
that  he  told  of  a  man  who  had  a  very  lazy  pony. 
The  man  finally  bought  a  pair  of  spurs,  but  they 
were  not  long  of  any  use,  for  the  moment  the  pony 
felt  the  prod  he  would  stick  out  a  forefoot  and 
lie  down.  The  owner  decided  that  he  would  trade 
him  off.  He  found  a  man  with  a  fine  horse  and 
proceeded  to  tell  him  of  the  wonderful  qualities  of 
his  pony.  At  the  moment  they  were  passing  a 
clump  of  bushes  where  he  saw  some  pheasants.  He 
struck  his  spur  into  the  pony  who  immediately  put 
out  his  forefoot  and  lay  down.  "There  are  pheas 
ants  around  here,"  he  cried  out.  "This  pony  is  a 
hunter  and  a  setter.  This  is  his  way  of  warning 
me."  And,  sure  enough,  when  the  men  dismounted 
and  went  to  the  bushes  they  did  scare  up  the  birds 
and  were  able  to  shoot  them.  The  man  was  very 
much  impressed  and  finally  made  a  trade. 

They  changed  their  saddles  and  went  on.  Soon 
they  reached  a  stream  which  they  had  to  ford.  The 
new  owner  of  the  pony  applied  his  spur  as  they  went 
into  the  stream,  when  out  went  the  pony's  forefoot 
and  down  he  lay.  The  former  owner  cried  out, 
"Don't  be  discouraged.  He  is  just  as  good  for  fish 
as  he  is  for  fowl."  "And  that's  the  way  with  Doug 
las,"  he  would  say,  "he  is  as  good  for  the  South  as 
he  is  for  the  North." 

One  feature  of  the  fight  which  Lincoln's  boy 
friends  particularly  resented  was  Douglas'  trickery 
in  debate.  He  was  a  poor  Scout  when  it  came  to 


The  Fight  of  His  Life  139 

meeting  the  hard  blows  Lincoln  gave  him.  He  be 
gan  by  trying  to  belittle  Mr.  Lincoln.  "He's  a  kind, 
amiable,  intelligent  gentleman,"  he  said.  He'd  first 
known  him  twenty-five  years  ago;  they'd  been  to 
gether  in  the  legislature  for  a  term,  and  then  Mr. 
Lincoln  had  "subsided,"  been  "submerged."  Ten 
years  later,  when  he  was  in  the  United  States  Sen 
ate  Lincoln  had  turned  up  in  Congress  for  a  term, 
but  the  people  had  refused  to  return  him  and  now 
here  he  was,  disputing  an  election  with  him.  Of 
course  Douglas  did  not  say,  "Isn't  that  the  most 
impudent  and  absurd  thing  you  ever  heard  of?"  but 
that  was  what  his  hearers  knew  he  wanted  them  to 
feel,  and  his  followers  took  the  cue  and  set  out  to 
make  Mr.  Lincoln  in  every  way  ridiculous. 

The  chief  Douglas  paper,  The  Times  of  Chicago, 
followed  its  leader  by  making  a  hodgepodge  of  all 
that  Mr.  Lincoln  said.  They  made  his  sentences 
ungrammatical,  ran  them  together,  left  out  punc 
tuation  or  misplaced  it,  twisted  his  meaning,  so  that 
the  result  was  often  an  unreadable  conglomeration 
of  nonsense.  And  when  The  Press  and  Tribune,  a 
Lincoln  paper,  published  his  speeches  properly  and 
charged  The  Times  with  mangling  its  reports,  the 
Douglas  paper  came  back,  declaring  that  they  were 
exact,  but  that  the  Republicans,  realizing  how  badly 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  doing,  had  sent  out  some  one  to 
"rake  after"  him.  That  this  was  not  true,  we  know 
from  the  same  Horace  White  whose  description  of 
Mr.  Lincoln  in  1854  I  have  already  given  you.  Mr. 
White  was  at  the  time  on  The  Press  and  Tribune, 
and  it  was  his  business  to  go  over  the  shorthand  re- 


140  Boy  Scouts9  Life  of  Lincoln 

ports  made  of  all  the  speeches  and  he  declares  he 
never  made  any  change. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  always  good-natured  under  these 
repeated  efforts  to  make  him  out  an  insignificant 
person.  "Of  course  what  Mr.  Douglas  says  is 
true,"  he  replied.  "With  me,  the  race  of  ambition 
has  been  a  failure — a  flat  failure;  with  him,  it  has 
been  a  splendid  success.  Senator  Douglas  is  of 
world  renown.  All  of  the  anxious  politicians  of  his 
party,  or  who  have  been  of  his  party  for  years  past, 
have  been  looking  upon  him  as  certain,  at  no  distant 
date,  to  be  the  President  of  the  United  States.  They 
have  seen  in  his  jolly,  fruitful  face  post  offices,  land 
offices,  marshalships,  and  Cabinet  appointments, 
chargeships  and  foreign  missions,  bursting  and 
sprouting  forth  in  wonderful  exuberance,  ready  to 
be  laid  hold  of  by  their  greedy  hands.  On  the  con 
trary,  nobody  has  ever  expected  me  to  be  President. 
In  my  poor,  lean,  lank  face,  nobody  has  ever  seen 
that  any  cabbages  were  sprouting  out." 

Nor  did  this  kind  of  attack  dishearten  him.  He 
believed  too  profoundly  in  the  truth  and  soundness 
of  his  arguments,  "I  know  the  judge  is  a  great  man, 
while  I  am  only  a  small  man,  but  /  feel  that  I  have 
got  him" 

Nor  was  this  effort  to  make  fun  of  Mr.  Lincoln 
Douglas'  most  serious  offense  against  the  code  of 
fair  play  in  debate.  When  he  knew  Lincoln  did 
have  him — was  making  an  argument  or  a  charge  that 
he  could  not  answer  or  stating  facts  that  he  could 
not  disprove — he  actually  roared  with  rage  and 
called  it  all  a  lie.  Lincoln  took  it  good-naturedly. 


The  Fight  of  His  Life  141 

"It  is  no  use,"  he  said,  "for  Judge  Douglas  to  'swell 
himself  up,'  take  on  dignity,  call  people  liars.  If 
you  have  ever  studied  geometry,  you  remember  that, 
by  a  course  of  reasoning,  Euclid  proves  that  all  the 
angles  in  a  triangle  are  equal  to  two  right  angles. 
Euclid  has  shown  you  how  to  work  it  out.  Now  if 
you  undertake  to  disprove  that  proposition  and  show 
that  it  is  erroneous,  would  you  prove  it  to  be  false  by 
calling  Euclid  a  liar?" 

What  really  irritated  Mr.  Lincoln  was  being 
forced  constantly  to  give  time  to  answering  charges 
that  did  not  bear  on  the  great  theme.  For  instance, 
Douglas  again  and  again  charged  that  he  had  re 
fused  to  support  the  Government  by  voting  sup 
plies  for  the  Mexican  War.  This  was  not  true.  Lin 
coln  had  always  voted  supplies.  Finally,  at  one  of 
the  debates  where  Douglas  was  taking  up  time  re 
peating  this,  Lincoln  settled  it  by  seizing  by  the  col 
lar  a  friend  of  Douglas,  a  man  who  had  been  in 
Congress  at  the  same  time  that  he  was,  and  dragging 
him  to  the  platform,  "Here,  you  were  there,  and  you 
know  whether  I  voted  supplies  or  not.  Is  Judge 
Douglas  telling  the  truth?"  The  man  so  unexpect 
edly  dragged  in  front  of  the  audience  had  to  admit 
that  Douglas  was  lying. 

"Judge  Douglas,"  he  complained  one  day,  "is 
playing  cuttlefish — a  small  species  of  fish  that  has 
no  mode  of  defending  himself  when  pursued  except 
by  throwing  out  a  black  fluid  which  makes  the  water 
so  dark  the  enemy  cannot  see  it,  and  thus  it  escapes." 

The  way  the  two  men  fought  became  more  and 
more  interesting,  especially  to  boys  and  young  men. 


142  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

A  boy  wants  fair  play.  He  doesn't  like  to  see  the 
man  he  is  backing  play  tricks,  if  he  is  an  honest  boy. 
The  anger  and  bitterness  and  unfairness  of  Douglas 
in  the  struggle  lost  him  much  sympathy  even  among 
his  followers;  and  the  good  nature,  kindliness,  and 
fairness  of  Lincoln  softened  even  his  enemies.  That 
is,  Douglas  lost  sympathy  as  Lincoln  gained  it.  His 
sincerity,  his  scrupulous  care  to  state  things  as  they 
were,  to  correct  or  explain  an  error  if  one  was 
pointed  out,  his  frankness  in  meeting  every  point 
that  Douglas  made,  never  evading  or  skulking,  piled 
up  the  respect  of  friend  and  foe.  His  deep  earnest 
ness,  his  appeal  to  the  right  and  wrong  of  the  mat 
ter  took  deepest  hold,  especially  of  the  young. 
Many  a  boy  felt  his  heart  burning  with  a  desire  to 
spend  his  life  fighting  for  the  right  thing,  the  honest 
thing,  as  he  watched  Abraham  Lincoln  making  his 
great  fight.  It  was  this  that  made  Illinois,  as  a 
whole,  feel  as  the  debates  came  to  a  close  that  the 
honors  were  fairly  Lincoln's.  Every  one,  friend 
and  foe,  agreed  that  he  had  been  what  a  man  should 
always  be — honest,  brave,  and  courteous. 

The  debates  closed  the  middle  of  October,  and 
in  November  came  the  elections.  Lincoln  had 
nearly  four  thousand  more  votes  in  the  State  than 
Douglas,  but  a  senator  is  elected  by  the  legislature; 
and  the  Democrats  came  out  with  forty  seats  to  the 
Republicans'  thirty-five;  that  is,  Douglas  had  won 
the  senatorship. 

Of  course  Lincoln  was  disappointed;  but  his 
friends  wondered  that  he  did  not  seem  downhearted. 
He  laughed  and  said  that  even  if  he  had  stubbed  his 


The  Fight  of  His  Life  143 

toe,  he  was  too  big  to  cry.  The  truth  was,  however, 
that  he  did  not  think  himself  defeated.  He  had  set 
out  to  do  something  which  he  considered  more  im 
portant  to  his  party  and  to  the  country  than  being 
himself  elected.  He  had  set  out  to  prove  that  Doug 
las  was  carrying  water  on  both  shoulders — trying 
to  make  Illinois  think  he  meant  one  thing  and  the 
South  another.  He  felt  he  had  done  that,  for  he 
knew  the  South  would  never  accept  the  explanation 
by  which  Douglas  had  won  Illinois.  This  meant 
that  Douglas  never  would  be  President. 

He  was  satisfied  that  he  had  persuaded  great 
numbers  of  people  that  unless  slavery  was  stopped, 
as  the  Fathers  had  expected  it  to  be,  it  would  spread 
all  over  the  country.  At  the  same  time,  he  knew  he 
had  made  these  same  thousands  of  men,  women,  and 
boys  feel  that  this  never  must  be,  because  slavery 
was  wrong. 

As  for  himself,  "Well,"  he  said,  "although  I  now 
sink  out  of  view  and  shall  be  forgotten,  I  believe  I 
have  made  some  marks  which  will  tell  for  the  cause 
of  civil  liberty  long  after  I  am  gone."  And  that 
had  been  his  great  aim — not  merely  to  be  senator. 
You  see,  he  really  thought  he  had  won. 

And  so  he  went  cheerfully  back  to  his  law.  And 
high  time,  too.  For  months  he  had  been  earning 
nothing  and  the  time  had  come  when  he  had  not  even 
money  for  houshould  expenses, 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  BIG  GIANT  OF  ILLINOIS 

He  went  about  his  work — such  work  as  few 
Ever  had  laid  on  head  and  heart  and  hand — 

As  one  who  knows,  where  there's  a  task  to  do, 

Man's  honest  will  must  Heaven's  good  grace  command. 

TOM  TAYLOR. 

NEXT  to  winning  a  fight  is  giving  the  winner  a 
drubbing  that  sets  the  knowing  who  look  on 
to  saying,  "Watch  that  man.  He  has  the 
makings  of  a  champion." 

That  is  what  happened  in  the  Lincoln-Douglas 
fight  of  1858.  Douglas  won;  that  is,  he  was  elected 
senator;  but  Lincoln  put  up  a  fight  that  set  scores  of 
young  men  and  some  older  ones  in  Illinois  declaring 
that  he  was  a  "great  man;  a  greater  man  than 
Douglas;"  "the  greatest  man  who  ever  lived"  one 
young  editor  shouted,  forthwith  rushing  to  his  paper 
and  proposing  him  for  the  next  President  of  the 
United  States  1 

Their  enthusiasm  was  strengthened  by  evidence 
that  came  to  them  of  the  impression  Lincoln's  work 
had  made  outside  of  the  State — even  on  "great  men" 
— leaders  in  the  life  of  the  East.  What  was  the  joy 
of  one  of  this  young  group  when  he  received  a  let 
ter  from  an  important  Easterner,  asking:  "Who  is 

144 


The  Big  Giant  of  Illinois  145 

this  man  that  is  replying  to  Douglas  in  your  State? 
Do  you  realize  that  no  greater  speeches  have  been 
made  on  public  questions  in  the  history  of  our 
country?" 

"There,"  they  all  cried  as  the  letter  was  passed 
around,  "I  told  you  so." 

One  Lincoln  man  in  the  East,  when  the  struggle 
was  going  on,  came  back  to  tell  how  amazed  and 
delighted  he  had  been  to  find  that  whenever  it  was 
known  he  was  from  Illinois,  all  sorts  of  questions 
about  Lincoln  were  asked  him:  How  old  he  was, 
where  he  had  been  educated,  what  he  "did."  Was 
he  rich?  How  did  he  know  so  much? 

This  friend  boasted  loudly,  uWe  have  two  giants 
in  Illinois.  Douglas  is  our  little  Giant — but  our  Big 
Giant  is  Abraham  Lincoln." 

"This  interest  should  be  kept  alive,"  he  told  Mr. 
Lincoln.  "It  will  make  you  president,"  and  he  sug 
gested  that  a  sketch  or  "life"  be  published.  Lincoln 
only  shook  his  head.  "What's  the  use  of  talking  of 
me  for  the  presidency,  while  we  have  such  men  as 
Seward,  Chase,  and  others,  who  are  so  much  better 
known  to  the  people,  and  whose  names  are  so  inti 
mately  associated  with  the  principles  of  the  Repub 
lican  party?  Everybody  knows  them;  nobody  scarcely 
outside  of  Illinois  knows  me.  Besides,  is  it  not,  as 
a  matter  of  justice,  due  to  such  men,  who  have  car 
ried  this  movement  forward  to  its  present  status,  in 
spite  of  fearful  opposition,  personal  abuse,  and  hard 
names?  I  really  think  so. 

"Let's  don't  talk  about  it,  it  won't  pay." 

His  hesitation  did  not  discourage  his  friends.    He 


146  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

had  the  makings  of  a  champion.  They  would  back 
him.  One  of  them — the  young  editor  who  had  lost 
his  head  at  the  convention  in  1856  when  Lincoln 
had  made  the  speech  which  had  carried  everybody 
away  with  enthusiasm — went  to  Washington  about 
a  year  after  the  debates  and  began  to  talk  up  Lincoln 
to  members  of  Congress. 

He  was  an  available  man,  he  told  them;  that  is, 
he  was  a  man  they  could  all  get  together  on — which 
was  not  true  in  the  case  of  other  better-known  candi 
dates.  What  this  young  editor  was  really  trying  to 
do  was  to  make  people  in  various  parts  of  the  coun 
try  know  that  Lincoln  was  in  the  field  and  that  Illi 
nois  was  behind  him. 

In  the  meantime,  Lincoln  was  building  himself 
up  politically  better  than  he  realized.  If  he  didn't 
see  much  chance  for  himself  he  saw  a  great  future 
for  the  Republican  party  if  they  were  "united  and 
resolute."  They  must  keep  their  pile  of  votes  to 
gether.  They  must  not  waste  time  dallying  with 
Douglas  as  some  of  the  Easterners  were  still  in 
clined  to  do.  They  must  stand  solid  for  1860.  He 
found  many  chances  to  do  his  part  in  keeping  the 
ranks  in  line.  From  all  sides  there  came  calls  for 
him  to  help  the  Republicans.  It  was  such  a  call  that 
in  the  fall  of  1859  took  him  to  Ohio.  He  went  will 
ingly,  for  he  was  again  on  Douglas'  heels.  And 
again  he  believed  he  "had"  him.  The  Little  Giant 
had  given  him  a  fine  opening  by  declaring  that  the 
men  who  had  founded  the  country,  the  "Fathers" — 
believed  with  him  that  Congress  had  no  power  to 
keep  slavery  out  of  the  territories — that  it  was  purely 


The  Big  Giant  of  Illinois  14? 

a  local  matter.  Lincoln  was  terribly  indignant  over 
this  contention. 

"There  are  two  ways  of  establishing  a  proposi 
tion/'  he  said  in  Ohio.  "One  is  by  trying  to  demon 
strate  it  upon  reason,  and  the  other  is  to  show  that 
great  men  in  former  times  have  thought  so  and  so, 
and  thus  to  pass  it  by  the  weight  of  pure  authority. 
Now,  if  Judge  Douglas  will  demonstrate  somehow 
that  this  is  popular  sovereignty — the  right  of  one 
man  to  make  a  slave  of  another,  without  any  right  in 
that  other  or  any  one  else  to  object — demonstrate  it 
as  Euclid  demonstrated  propositions — there  is  no  ob 
jection.  But  when  he  comes  forward,  seeking  to 
carry  a  principle  by  bringing  it  to  the  authority  of 
men  who  themselves  utterly  repudiate  that  principle, 
I  ask  that  he  shall  not  be  permitted  to  do  it.  He 
asks  the  community  to  believe  that  the  men  of  the 
Revolution  were  in  favor  of  his  great  principle,  when 
we  have  the  naked  history  that  they  themselves 
dealt  with  this  very  subject  matter  of  his  principle, 
and  utterly  repudiated  his  principle,  acting  upon  a 
precisely  contrary  ground.  It  is  as  impudent  and 
absurd  as  if  a  prosecuting  attorney  should  stand  up 
before  a  jury  and  ask  them  to  convict  A  as  the  mur 
derer  of  B,  while  B  was  walking  alive  before  them." 

Lincoln  realized,  however,  that  he  did  not  neces 
sarily  rout  Douglas  by  insisting  that  he  was  wrong. 
He  must  prove  it,  and  so  when  late  in  the  year  he 
received  an  invitation  from  the  Young  Men's  Repub 
lican  Club  of  Brooklyn,  New  York,  to  speak  in 
Plymouth  Church  the  next  February,  he  set  to  work 
to  collect  full  proofs.  It  was  a  heavy  task,  but  he 


148  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

did  not  shirk  it.  All  through  the  winter  he  pored 
over  records  and  documents  and  histories  of  the 
period  when  the  Constitution  was  being  made  and 
amended,  refreshing  his  memory,  digging  up  new 
facts,  examining  and  strengthening  the  arguments 
he  had  been  building  up  in  the  last  six  years  and  out 
of  it  all  producing  a  new  speech  which  he  knew  was 
a  good  one — good  because  it  was  sound  at  the  heart 
— the  truth  and  the  whole  truth  about  the  "Fathers." 

When  the  time  for  his  engagement  came,  the 
speech  was  finished  and  carefully  written  out.  Anx 
ious  to  look  his  best  as  well  as  to  do  his  best,  he 
bought  a  brand-new  suit  of  clothes  and  started  East. 
When  he  arrived  he  found  that  the  club  had  trans 
ferred  the  lecture  to  New  York  City,  such  was  the 
interest  in  his  coming.  He  was  to  speak  in  Cooper 
Union  and  to  have  in  his  audience  a  big  group  of 
distinguished  men — men  like  Horace  Greeley, 
George  William  Curtis,  William  Cullen  Bryant.  It 
was  to  be  a  trial  of  his  ability,  he  saw,  a  test  of  what 
he  was  worth.  He  set  his  teeth  hard.  He  knew 
he  had  his  proofs — if  he  could  only  present  them  so 
as  to  show  people  their  real  meaning  and  stir  them 
to  action! 

He  had  written  the  speech  in  full,  but  he  had  gone 
over  his  arguments  so  carefully  and  so  often  in  his 
mind  that  he  had  no  need  of  notes.  Nor  did  he  make 
any  attempt  to  catch  his  audience  at  the  start  by  the 
stories  and  jokes  for  which  he  was  famous  and  which 
they  rather  expected  from  him,  but  plunged  at  once 
into  the  heart  of  the  question,  taking  as  his  text 
words  from  Douglas'  own  mouth : 


LINCOLN  IN  FEBRUARY,  1860,  AT  THE  TIME  OF  THE  COOPER 
INSTITUTE  SPEECH 

From    photograph   by   Brady.      It  was   a    frequent   remark   of   Lincoln   that 
this    portrait    and    the    Cooper    Institute    Speech    made    him    President. 


The  Big  Giant  of  Illinois  149 

"Our  Fathers,  when  they  framed  the  government 
under  which  we  live,  understood  this  question  just 
as  well,  and  even  better  than  we  do  now." 

"I  agree,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln,  "now  let  us  see  how 
they  understood  it."  Who  were  the  "Fathers?" 
First,  there  were  the  thirty-nine  men  who  signed  the 
Constitution.  What  did  they  think  about  letting 
slavery  into  the  territories?  Man  by  man  he  had 
picked  them  out  and  hunted  up  just  what  they  had 
said  and  how  they  had  voted  on  the  subject.  He 
showed  his  audience  that  twenty-one  of  the  thirty- 
nine  were  on  record  as  against  slavery  in  any  terri 
tory  the  United  States  then  owned — only  two  he 
found  had  ever  voted  for  its  admission.  He  in 
cluded  the  members  of  the  first  Congress  in  the 
"Fathers"  as  they  had  adopted  the  first  ten  amend 
ments  made  to  the  Constitution  and  he  showed  that 
this  congress  of  seventy-six  men  passed  an  ordinance 
forbidding  slavery  in  all  the  territory  we  then  owned. 

Of  course  we  should  count  George  Washington 
as  a  "Father."  What  did  he  think  about  Congress 
having  the  power  to  keep  slavery  out  of  the  terri 
tory?  Why,  he  signed  the  bill  that  did  the  thing. 
Moreover,  he  told  Lafayette  he  thought  it  a  wise 
thing  to  do  and  that  for  his  part  he  hoped  the  time 
would  come  when  all  the  States  would  be  free. 

That  is,  Lincoln  had  taken  Douglas  at  his  word 
and  showed  by  proof,  which  had  cost  him  long  days 
of  research,  that  the  "Fathers"  had  thought  slavery 
ought  to  be  restricted,  that  they  had  made  the  best 
laws  they  could  to  restrict  it ;  and  had  stood  by  these 
laws  as  long  as  they  lived. 


150  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

All  that  the  Republicans  now  asked,  Mr.  Lincoln 
said,  was  that  Congress  continue  to  do  as  the 
"Fathers"  had  done.  "As  those  Fathers  marked  it, 
so  let  it  be  again  marked  as  an  evil  not  to  be  ex 
tended  but  to  be  tolerated  and  protected  only  be 
cause  of  and  so  far  as  its  actual  presence  among  us 
makes  that  toleration  and  protection  a  necessity." 

Resting  on  the  historical  foundation  that  he  had 
laid,  Lincoln  went  on  in  his  speech  to  claim  that  the 
Republicans,  far  from  being  revolutionists  as  Doug 
las  was  declaring  them  to  be,  were  in  fact  the  real 
conservatives ;  that,  they  were  following  the  Consti 
tution,  not  evading  it.  If  this  were  true,  why  should 
there  be  men  threatening  to  leave  the  Union  in  case 
a  Republican  President  was  elected?  What  would 
satisfy  people  that  were  making  these  threats? 
Nothing  in  the  world,  Lincoln  said,  but  that  the 
Republicans  should  declare  that  slavery  was  right 
and  allow  it  to  spread,  and  he  ended  his  speech  with 
certain  sentences,  necessary  to  bear  in  mind  if  you 
are  to  fully  understand  just  how  Lincoln  was  think 
ing  and  feeling  at  this  moment. 

"If  slavery  is  right,"  he  said,  "all  words,  acts, 
laws,  and  constitutions  against  it  are  themselves 
wrong,  and  should  be  silenced  and  swept  away.  If 
it  is  right,  we  cannot  justly  object  to  its  nationality — 
its  universality;  if  it  is  wrong,  they  cannot  justly  in 
sist  upon  its  extension — its  enlargement.  All  they 
ask  we  could  readily  grant,  if  we  thought  slavery 
right;  all  we  ask  they  could  as  readily  grant,  if  they 
thought  it  wrong.  Their  thinking  it  right  and  our 


The  Big  Giant  of  Illinois  151 

thinking  it  wrong  is  the  precise  fact  upon  which  de 
pends  the  whole  controversy.  Thinking  it  right,  as 
they  do,  they  are  not  to  blame  for  desiring  its  full 
recognition  as  being  right ;  but  thinking  it  wrong,  as 
we  do,  can  we  yield  to  them?  Can  we  cast  our  votes 
with  their  view,  and  against  our  own?  In  view  of 
our  moral,  social,  and  political  responsibilities,  can 
we  do  this? 

"Wrong,  as  we  think  slavery  is,  we  can  yet  afford 
to  let  it  alone  where  it  is,  because  that  much  is  due  to 
the  necessity  arising  from  its  actual  presence  in  the 
nation;  but  can  we,  while  our  votes  will  prevent  it, 
allow  it  to  spread  into  the  national  territories,  and 
to  overrun  us  here  in  these  free  States?  If  our  sense 
of  duty  forbids  this,  then  let  us  stand  by  our  duty 
fearlessly  and  effectively.  Let  us  be  diverted  by  none 
of  those  sophistical  contrivances  wherewith  we  are  so 
industriously  plied  and  belabored — contrivances  such 
as  groping  for  some  middle  ground  between  the  right 
and  the  wrong;  vain  as  the  search  for  a  man  who 
should  be  neither  a  living  man  nor  a  dead  man;  such 
as  a  policy  of  'don't  care'  on  a  question  about  which 
all  true  men  do  care ;  such  as  Union  appeals  beseech 
ing  true  Union  men  to  yield  to  Disunionists,  revers 
ing  the  divine  rule  and  calling,  not  the  sinners,  but 
the  righteous  to  repentance;  such  as  invocations  to 
Washington,  imploring  men  to  unsay  what  Washing 
ton  said  and  undo  what  Washington  did. 

"Neither  let  us  be  slandered  from  our  duty  by 
false  accusations  against  us,  nor  frightened  from  it 
by  menaces  of  destruction  to  the  government,  nor  of 


152  Boy  Scouts9  Life  of  Lincoln 

dungeons  to  ourselves.  Let  us  have  faith  that  right 
makes  might,  and  in  that  faith  let  us  to  the  end  dare 
to  do  our  duty  as  we  understand  it." 

Mr.  Lincoln's  highly  intelligent  audience  was  so 
captivated  by  the  careful  and  solid  way  in  which  he 
built  up  his  arguments  and  by  the  force  and  origi 
nality  of  his  expressions  that  again  and  again  the 
packed  house  stopped  him  by  long  and  enthusiastic 
applause.  He  won  them  completely.  The  next  day 
The  New  York  Evening  Post,  of  which  the  poet, 
William  Cullen  Bryant,  was  editor,  published  the 
whole  speech,  and  a  committee  of  the  Young  Men's 
Republican  Club,  eager  to  let  people  see  what  this 
Western  man,  who  had  so  carried  away  an  Eastern 
audience,  looked  like,  took  him  out  and  had  his 
photograph  made.  A  few  days  later  this  picture 
filled  the  front  page  of  Harper's  Weekly. 

Mr.  Lincoln  used  to  say  that  the  Cooper  Union 
speech  and  this  picture  made  him  President.  You 
should  study  the  picture  as  well  as  the  speech.  And 
if  you  do,  you  will  see  at  once  that  he  was  not  the 
uncouth,  ill-clad  man  that  his  enemies  were  already 
describing  him  to  be.  This  picture  shows  a  man  of 
dignity  and  gentleness,  with  a  face  of  strong  lines 
and  features  and  eyes  deep  with  feeling.  And  as  for 
clothes,  they  were  the  correct  ones  of  the  day,  easily 
and  unconsciously  worn.  A  man  to  look  at  again 
and  again  if  you  met  him  in  a  crowd. 

You  can  imagine  how  all  that  had  happened  in 
New  York  delighted  his  friends  back  home  who  were 
working  so  hard  to  make  him  Illinois1  candidate  for 
President.  There  were  not  a  few  of  the  most  impor- 


The  Big  Giant  of  Illinois  153 

tant  Republicans  in  the  State  who  felt  as  Lincoln 
had  felt  himself  that  with  Seward  and  Chase  in  the 
field  it  would  be  wasting  ammunition  to  use  Lincoln. 
Seward  had  the  lead,  and  it  was  this  lead  that  Lin 
coln's  friends  were  trying  to  overcome.  They,  of 
course,  made  the  best  of  what  he  had  done  in  New 
York.  "Look  at  this,"  they  shouted,  "his  whole 
speech  reported  in  a  big  New  York  paper,  and  a 
full-page  picture  in  Harper's  Weekly.  They  recog 
nize  what  we  have  always  said,  that  Lincoln  is  a 
great  man.  And  if  this  is  so,  why  should  we  not 
stand  by  our  own?  Why  go  outside  of  the  State  for 
a  candidate  when  we  have  such  material?" 

When  Lincoln  came  back  after  a  month  of  speak 
ing  and  sight-seeing  in  the  East  he  found  his  presi 
dential  boom  had  grown  like  a  gourd  in  his  absence, 
and  it  looked  every  day  more  and  more  as  if  he  and 
not  Seward  would  be  the  choice  of  the  State  when 
the  convention  was  held.  And  so  it  happened.  He 
was  nominated  at  Decatur,  the  town  near  which  his 
father  had  settled  in  1831. 

Whatever  opposition  there  was  to  him  when  the 
convention  met  was  swept  away  by  a  simple  demon 
stration,  suggested  by  the  very  man  with  whom  in 
those  early  days  he  had  cut  rails  and  steered  flat- 
boats.  This  was  John  Hanks,  who,  you  will  remem 
ber,  Thomas  Lincoln  had  decided  to  follow  into  Illi 
nois.  Hanks  was  still  living  on  his  farm  near  Deca 
tur,  and  although  he  was  a  Democrat,  his  admiration 
for  Lincoln  was  so  great  that  when  he  heard  that  his 
name  was  before  the  convention,  he  went  into  town 
and  looked  up  a  delegate  whom  he  knew.  "I  have 


154  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

known  Mr.  Lincoln  for  thirty  years,"  he  told  this 
man,  "and  we  are  opposed  in  politics.  I  have  seen 
him  defeated  again  and  again,  when  he  knew  that  all 
he  had  to  do  to  win  was  to  change,  but  he  has  never 
changed.  I  respect  him  and  I  want  you  to  help  me 
to  do  something  for  him." 

Hanks  went  on  to  tell  this  man  how,  in  their  boy 
hood  days,  he  and  Lincoln  had  toiled  together,  some 
times  flatboating,  sometimes  lumbering;  how  they 
had  tramped  the  prairies  and  forests  with  gun  and 
ax,  cut  and  mauled  rails  along  the  Sangamon  River, 
to  enclose  his  father's  little  home.  All  this  time, 
however  hard  he  was  working,  there  never  was  a 
time  but  what  he  managed  somehow  to  get  books. 
He  settled  all  the  disputes  in  the  neighborhood,  and 
his  decisions  were  always  abided  by.  UI  never  knew 
a  man  so  honest,  under  all  circumstances,  for  his 
whole  life,"  declared  John  Hanks.  "My  wife  used 
to  say  to  me  that  some  day  Abe  would  come  out  and 
be  something,  but  I  could  not  exactly  see  how  a  day 
laborer,  hopelessly  poor,  would  ever  stand  much 
chance  to  get  up  high  in  the  world.  So  when  I  heard 
that  they  were  going  to  run  him  for  President  here 
at  Decatur,  I  thought  that  it  might  be  a  good  thing 
to  present  some  of  the  rails  that  we  made  together 
thirty  years  ago.  I  thought  they  would  speak  louder 
in  his  praise  than  any  orator  could  and  that  the  con 
vention  would  like  to  honor  true  labor." 

The  friend  to  whom  John  Hanks  said  all  of  this, 
and  probably  a  good  deal  more,  quite  agreed;  and 
as  a  result  of  their  talk,  just  before  the  vote  on  the 
candidate  was  taken,  a  little  procession  marched  into 


The  Big  Giant  of  Illinois  155 

the  room,  bearing  a  big  banner  mounted  on  fence 
rails.    On  this  banner  was  this  inscription: 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 

The  Rail  Candidate 
FOR  PRESIDENT  IN  1860 

Two  rails  from  a  lot  of  3,000  made  in 
1830  by  John  Hanks  and  Abe  Lincoln — 
whose  father  was  the  first  pioneer  of 
Macon  County. 

The  whole  convention  broke  out  in  cheers  and 
began  to  call  "Lincoln,  Lincoln."  "I  suppose,"  said 
Mr.  Lincoln,  rising  and  pointing  to  the  banner,  "that 
I  am  expected  to  reply  to  that.  I  can't  say  that  I 
made  those  rails  or  not,  but  I  am  quite  sure  that  I 
made  a  great  many  just  as  good."  The  heart  of  the 
convention  warmed  toward  him — a  great  man — the 
"Big  Giant"  of  Illinois;  a  man  who  knew — nobody 
better — what  hard  labor  meant.  A  wise  man  in  the 
crowd,  listening  to  the  cheers,  turned  to  a  friend  and 
said,  "Seward  has  lost  the  Illinois  delegation."  And 
so  he  had. 

Lincoln  was  Illinois'  choice,  her  "favorite  son." 
But  how  about  the  country?  Could  he  get  even  one 
more  State?  Why  should  he  get  another  State,  Lin 
coln  still  asked  himself,  when  there  were  men  like 
Seward  and  Chase? 

The  friends  who  had  engineered  his  boom  to  this 
point  did  not  stop  to  ask  this  question.  They  were 
too  busy. 


156  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

The  national  Republican  convention  of  1861  was 
held  in  Chicago,  and  this  gave  them  a  great  advan 
tage — the  advantage  a  home  team  always  has  on  its 
own  field  over  a  visiting  team.  There  are  more 
banners  flying  for  it,  more  girls  wearing  its  colors, 
bigger  crowds  cheering  its  moves.  The  Lincoln  dele 
gation  did  not  neglect  a  single  point.  They  flung 
banners  across  every  street  in  Chicago,  draped  the 
face  of  every  friendly  building.  They  brought  in 
crowds  from  all  over  the  prairies,  with  every  State 
band  they  could  lay  their  hands  upon,  to  march  and 
sing  and  hurrah. 

Other  States  might  import  famous  bands  and  ora 
tors  and  banners ;  but  Illinois  saw  to  it  that  her  man 
had  more  of  everything. 

When  a  political  party  chooses  a  candidate  for 
President,  the  chief  thing  is  to  find  a  man  who  can 
be  elected.  The  business  of  Lincoln's  friends  in  this 
convention  was  to  persuade  a  majority  of  the  dele 
gates  that  he  had  a  better  chance  of  being  elected 
than  any  other  man,  even  Seward  himself.  Seward 
was  the  leader  of  the  party,  no  doubt,  but  there  were 
great  States  like  Illinois,  Pennsylvania,  Indiana,  and 
New  Jersey  in  which  the  prejudices  against  him  were 
so  strong  that  they  could  not  elect  him.  Why  go 
down  to  defeat  with  Seward,  the  Illinois  men  argued, 
when  there  was  no  such  prejudice  against  Lincoln? 

But  the  delegates  from  other  States  could  argue 
the  same  about  their  favorite  sons,  and  did.  The 
Illinois  delegates  then  had  the  task  of  persuading 
each  of  these  different  States  that  in  case  its  candidate 
could  not  win,  the  next  best  man  was  Lincoln. 


The  Big  Giant  of  Illinois  157 

Still  another  task  that  they  had  was  trying  to  con 
centrate  on  Lincoln  at  once  as  many  as  possible  of 
the  delegates  who  had  come  "uninstructed." 

Men  always  work  fiercely  at  national  conventions, 
but  probably  no  delegates  ever  worked  harder  than 
these  friends  of  Abraham  Lincoln  in  1860.  For 
days  before  the  convention  and  night  and  day  after 
it  began,  they  ran  from  one  State  group  to  another, 
arguing,  pleading,  threatening,  trading.  And  their 
work  told,  for,  even  before  the  convention  was  called 
on  May  i6th,  Lincoln's  chances  were  looking  up.  All 
through  the  early  days  of  the  convention  these 
chances  constantly  improved ;  still,  on  the  morning  of 
the  day  the  nomination  was  to  be  made,  there  seemed 
to  be  no  great  likelihood  of  his  succeeding.  The 
best  observers  were  saying  that  Seward's  nomination 
was  sure. 

A  great  convention  for  nominating  a  President  is 
always  one  of  the  most  exciting  things  that  happens 
in  this  country,  and  the  crowds  it  draws  together  are 
among  the  largest  that  we  ever  see.  In  Chicago  in 
1860  the  Republicans  had  an  enormous  gathering. 
They  had  built  a  great  barn  of  an  auditorium  which 
they  called  the  Wigwam — big  enough  to  hold  some 
ten  thousand  people.  This  was  packed  to  the  very 
roof  the  morning  the  voting  began  while  outside  the 
streets  were  packed  quite  as  closely  with  people  wait 
ing  for  news.  If  you  have  ever  been  at  a  convention 
you  know  how,  after  the  names  of  all  the  candidates 
are  in,  and  the  voting  begins,  you  hold  your  very 
breath.  You  know  how  quickly  your  pencil  flies  as 
you  put  down  the  votes  for  each  man,  how  swiftly 


158  Boy  Scouts9  Life  of  Lincoln 

you  add  them  up,  how  quickly  you  compare  the  re 
sults  !  That  morning  in  Chicago,  hundreds  of  pen 
cils,  held  by  hands,  many  of  which  trembled  with  ex 
citement,  cast  up  votes;  and  the  very  first  addition 
told  a  tale.  Lincoln  had  102  votes — 5 1 1/2  more  than 
the  next  man  below  him.  It  was  a  big  difference. 

Could  these  5 1 1/2  votes  be  secured  for  him  ?  They 
belonged  to  Pennsylvania.  Pennsylvania  knew  that 
she  had  no  chance  of  winning  for  her  man,  Simon 
Cameron.  Might  she  not  be  impressed  by  the  size 
of  Lincoln's  vote  and  change  at  once  for  him?  There 
was  a  quick  consultation;  the  answer  came:  "Penn 
sylvania  gives  her  52  votes  for  Lincoln."  It  was  the 
beginning  of  a  break.  Others  quickly  followed,  and 
when  the  flying  pencils  added  up  the  second  ballot, 
Lincoln  had  182  votes.  The  third  ballot  was  taken 
quickly,  and  ten  thousand  people  sat  breathless  as 
State  after  State  turned  over  its  vote  to  Lincoln. 
This  last  report  was  scarcely  in  before  a  whisper 
and  then  a  yell  ran  through  the  great  crowd — 231^ 
votes  for  Lincoln;  2j4  more  would  give  him  the 
nomination.  Ohio  was  the  first  to  act — 4  votes  from 
Chase.  He  had  won. 

You  know,  of  course,  what  happened  then.  You 
can  imagine  the  roar  that  rose  and  fell  until  there  was 
no  breath  left  in  the  cheerers.  Illinois  that  morning 
had  packed  the  Wigwam  with  men  and  women  pre 
pared,  in  case  of  Lincoln's  nomination,  to  outroar 
anything  that  had  ever  been  known  in  the  history  of 
political  conventions.  One  of  Lincoln's  friends  who 
had  worked  longest  and  hardest  for  him  has  left  ? 


The  Big  Giant  of  Illinois  159 

stirring  description  of  what  this  claque  did  when 
the  vote  was  announced. 

"The  scene  which  followed  baffles  all  human  de 
scription.  After  an  instant's  silence,  as  deep  as 
death,  which  seemed  to  be  required  to  enable  the 
assembly  to  take  in  the  full  force  of  the  announce 
ment,  the  wildest  and  mightiest  yell  (for  it  can  be 
called  by  no  other  name)  burst  forth  from  ten  thou 
sand  voices  which  we  ever  heard  from  mortal 
throats.  This  strange  and  tremendous  demonstra 
tion,  accompanied  with  leaping  up  and  down,  tossing 
hats,  handkerchiefs,  and  canes  recklessly  into  the  air, 
with  the  waving  of  flags,  and  with  every  other  con 
ceivable  mode  of  exultant  and  unbridled  joy,  con 
tinued  steadily  and  without  pause  for  perhaps  ten 
minutes. 

"It  then  began  to  rise  and  fall  in  slow  and  billow 
ing  bursts,  and  for  perhaps  the  next  five  minutes 
these  stupendous  waves  of  uncontrollable  excitement, 
now  rising  into  the  deepest  and  fiercest  shouts  and 
then  sinking  like  the  ground  swell  of  the  ocean  into 
hoarse  and  lessening  murmurs,  rolled  through  the 
multitude.  Every  now  and  then  it  would  seem  as 
though  the  physical  power  of  the  assembly  was  ex 
hausted  and  that  quiet  would  be  restored,  when  all 
at  once  a  new  hurricane  would  break  out,  more  pro 
longed  and  terrific  than  anything  before.  If  sheer 
exhaustion  had  not  prevented,  we  don't  know  but  the 
applause  would  have  continued  to  this  hour." 

While  this  was  going  on  inside  the  Wigwam,  the 
town  outside  went  crazy,  A  boy  with  a  cannon  had 


160  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

been  placed  on  the  roof  with  instructions  to  fire  if 
Lincoln  was  nominated.  When  this  cannon  boomed 
the  news,  twenty  thousand  people  in  the  neighbor 
hood  took  up  the  cry.  It  spread  over  the  city,  and 
from  the  city  to  the  country;  and  before  morning  it 
was  just  as  Douglas  said  when  he  heard  the  news  in 
Washington,  "There  won't  be  a  tar  barrel  left  in 
Illinois  to-night." 

Down  in  Springfield  the  town  had  been  hanging 
around  the  telegraph  office  all  the  morning,  waiting 
for  news.  Mr.  Lincoln  himself  had  dropped  in  two 
or  three  times  only  to  go  out  when  the  report  came 
in  that  the  voting  had  begun.  He  still  did  not  think 
it  was  possible  that  he  could  win  over  Seward.  He 
was  standing  in  the  door  of  a  shop  across  the  square, 
talking  to  a  friend,  when  he  suddenly  saw  a  boy 
plunging  headlong  through  the  crowd  toward  him. 
He  was  shouting  at  the  top  of  his  voice:  "Mr. 
Lincoln,  you  are  nominated !  Mr.  Lincoln,  you  are 
nominated!" 

You  can  imagine  what  happened  in  Springfield 
then — the  handshaking  and  the  laughing  and  the 
crying!  How  the  men  gathered  about  Mr.  Lincoln 
and  the  woman  ran  in  to  talk  it  over  with  Mrs. 
Lincoln!  How  the  boys  and  the  girls  gathered 
around  Tad  and  Willie — the  two  Lincoln  boys  who 
were  at  home ! 

It  was  the  beginning  of  an  exciting  nine  months 
for  Springfield — a  nine  months  in  which  almost  every 
day  brought  some  new  joyful  or  tragic  sensation. 

If  Mr.  Lincoln  had  had  doubts  of  his  nomina 
tion  up  to  the  very  hour  that  the  excited  small  boy 


The  Big  Giant  of  Illinois  161 

rushed  across  the  square  shouting  the  news,  he  had 
less  of  his  election.  If  the  Republicans  held  to 
gether,  it  looked  as  if  it  could  be  done — and  this  was 
true  chiefly  because  those  who  opposed  him  were 
badly  divided.  There  was  a  party  that  believed 
slavery  could  not  legally  be  kept  off  new  soil  by  either 
Congress  or  local  government,  and  it  had  a  ticket 
in  the  field.  There  was  a  party  which  declared  Con 
gress  could  not  keep  it  out  but  that  the  local  govern 
ment  could;  or,  as  Mr.  Lincoln  put  it:  "A  thing 
may  be  lawfully  driven  away  from  where  it  has  a 
lawful  right  to  be;"  and  it  had  a  ticket  and  Douglas 
was  at  its  head.  There  was  a  third  party  which 
evaded  the  slavery  question  and  declared  for  the 
Union,  and  it  had  a  ticket.  A  situation  more  helpful 
to  Mr.  Lincoln's  success  could  not  have  been  ar 
ranged,  if  the  Republicans  only  held  together.  But 
would  they?  Would  great  men  like  Seward  and 
Chase  consent?  To  Mr.  Lincoln's  great  joy  they  did 
soon  consent,  and,  disappointed  as  they  were,  wrote 
him  manly  letters  of  congratulation.  Seward's  fol 
lowers  were  all  for  bolting  the  nomination  at  first 
and  putting  Mr.  Seward  in  the  field.  He  laughed  at 
them.  "The  Republican  party  was  not  made  for 
William  H.  Seward,"  he  said,  "but  Mr.  Seward,  if 
he  is  worth  anything,  for  the  Republican  party." 

It  was  not  long  before  everybody  was  in  line.  If 
they  worked  they  could  do  it,  they  kept  telling  one 
another. 

It  was  a  great  campaign,  that  followed;  and  it 
was  a  campaign  in  which  more  boys  took  part  than 
any  that  the  country  had  ever  seen.  The  feature  in 


1 62  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

which  they  were  most  interested  was  the  "Wide 
Awakes."  There  were  bands  organized  for  street 
parades,  bodyguards  for  political  speakers,  and  for 
all  sorts  of  campaign  work,  such  work  as  Boy  Scouts 
would  do  nowadays.  They  wore  black-glazed  caps 
and  capes  and  carried  blazing  coal-oil  torches.  The 
ambition  of  each  club  of  Wide  Awakes  was  to  outdo 
all  neighboring  clubs  in  fantastic  marching.  They 
learned  all  the  movements  they  could  hear  of  and 
invented  their  own  combinations,  drilling  until  they 
were  perfect  in  their  forming  and  reforming.  Their 
favorite  march  was  the  zigzag — an  imitation  of  a 
rail  fence.  Each  band,  of  course,  had  its  own  partic 
ular  badge,  and  each  was  ambitious  to  have  on  its 
badge  a  picture  of  Mr.  Lincoln  splitting  rails  or 
steering  a  flatboat. 

Many  of  the  Wide  Awakes  carried  their  banners 
mounted  on  rails  in  the  fashion  introduced  at  the 
Decatur  convention,  and  proud  indeed  was  the  club 
that  had  one  of  the  original  rails  Lincoln  had  made 
in  1831.  None  of  the  Wide  Awakes  owned  a  Lin 
coln  relic  quite  so  precious,  however,  as  the  band  at 
Hartford,  Connecticut — this  was  the  very  maul  with 
which  he  had  split  the  rails  which  were  now  in  such 
demand.  This  maul  was  treasured  by  the  Hartford 
Wide  Awakes  as  long  as  they  existed  and  finally  was 
given  to  the  Connecticut  Historical  Society,  where  it 
is  still  to  be  seen. 

The  Wide  Awakes  marched  and  everybody  sang. 
The  refrain  of  the  favorite  song  ran : 

"Oh,  ain't  you  glad  you  joined  the  Republicans?" 


The  Big  Giant  of  Illinois  163 

But  the  finest  was  Whittier's  "  The  Quakers  are 
Out.JI 

"Give  the  flags  to  the  winds! 

Set  the  hills  all  aflame! 
Make  way  for  the  man  with 

The  Patriarch's  name! 
Away  with  misgivings — away 

With  all  doubt, 
For  Lincoln  goes  in  when  the 

Quakers  are  out!" 

Marching  and  singing  were  only  the  accompani 
ments  to  the  speaking.  The  campaign  was  distin 
guished  by  some  of  the  noblest  and  most  sincere 
political  speeches  we've  ever  heard  in  the  United 
States.  The  theme  was  so  great — that  of  human 
freedom — that  it  brought  out  the  best  in  men. 
Charles  Sumner,  William  H.  Seward,  Carl  Schurz, 
Horace  Greeley,  Salmon  P.  Chase  were  the  most 
noted  of  these  speakers;  but  there  was  scarcely  a 
county  in  the  North  that  did  not  have  its  local  ora 
tor.  Through  the  summer  and  fall  there  was  a  con 
tinual  succession  of  rallies  and  celebrations  and  polit 
ical  picnics  bringing  together  thousands  of  people. 
The  greatest  of  these  all  was  in  Springfield  in  August, 
when  a  procession  of  seventy-five  thousand  people — 
eight  miles  long — passed  before  Mr.  Lincoln's  door. 
Think  of  what  that  meant  to  the  boys  of  the  town 
that  knew  and  loved  him  so  well ! 

The  hard  work  the  Republicans  were  putting  in, 
the  enthusiasm  that  their  feeling  that  they  were  right 
was  giving  them,  the  division  in  their  opponents' 
lines,  told  every  day;  and  long  before  election  time 


164  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

Mr.  Lincoln  felt  reasonably  sure  that  he  would  be 
the  next  President  .of  the  United  States.  But,  along 
with  this  certainty,  came  an  increasing  anxiety.  Ever 
since  the  Republicans  had  set  out  to  prevent  slavery's 
spreading  to  free  soil,  there  had  been  many  groups 
of  important  people  in  the  slave  States,  who  had 
threatened  to  go  out  of  the  Union  and  fight  to  stay 
out,  if  the  Republicans  should  ever  elect  a  President. 
They  had  said  this  in  1856,  and  when  Mr.  Lincoln 
went  over  to  the  new  party  that  year  and  made  his 
great  "lost  speech,"  he  had  told  them  that,  such 
questions  were  to  be  settled  in  this  country  "by  bal 
lots,  not  bullets."  And  he  had  added,  "We  won't 
go  out  of  the  Union,  and  you  shan't." 

The  more  flourishing  the  Republicans  became,  the 
louder  the  threats  of  the  Disunionists.  When  Mr. 
Lincoln  spoke  in  Cincinnati  in  the  fall  of  1859,  he 
had  a  good  many  of  the  discontented  in  his  audience, 
and  he  took  pains  to  reassure  them.  "Suppose  we 
do  beat  you,"  he  said,  "what  are  we  going  to  do  with 
you?  We  mean  to  treat  you  as  nearly  as  we  possibly 
can  as  Washington  and  Jefferson  and  Madison 
treated  you.  We  mean  to  leave  you  alone,  and  in 
no  way  interfere  with  your  institution,  to  abide  by 
all  and  every  compromise  of  the  Constitution.  We 
mean  to  remember  that  you  are  as  good  as  we,  that 
there  is  no  difference  between  us  other  than  the  dif 
ference  of  circumstances.  We  mean  to  recognize 
and  bear  in  mind  always  that  you  have  as  good  hearts 
in  your  bosoms  as  other  people  or  as  we  claim  to 
have,  and  treat  you  accordingly.  We  mean  to  marry 


The  Big  Giant  of  Illinois  165 

your  girls  when  we  have  a  chance — the  white  ones, 
I  mean;  and  I  have  the  honor  to  inform  you  that  I 
once  did  have  a  chance  in  that  way." 

As  the  election  approached  and  it  looked  more  and 
more  as  if  the  Republicans  would  succeed,  the  Dis- 
unionists  became  louder  and  louder  in  their  threats. 
Mr.  Lincoln,  however,  never  really  believed  that 
they  would  carry  out  what  they  said.  It  did  not 
seem  possible  to  him.  To  him  the  Union  was  one 
and  indivisible,  something  sacred,  that  must  be  pro 
tected  and  preserved.  He  felt  that  it  was  not  only 
the  liberty  and  happiness  of  the  people  of  this  coun 
try  that  was  involved  in  the  preservation  of  the 
Union,  but  the  hope  of  the  world  for  all  future  time. 
We  were  trying  to  work  out  a  government  based  on 
the  Declaration  of  Independence — a  government 
which  promised  that  in  due  time  the  weights  should 
be  lifted  from  the  shoulders  of  all  men  and  that  all 
should  have  an  equal  chance.  For  men  deliberately 
to  attempt  to  break  up  a  Union  which  had  this  senti 
ment  behind  it  was  unthinkable  to  him.  He  did  not 
believe  it  of  the  South,  and  although  the  defiance 
became  thicker  and  thicker  through  the  summer  and 
fall,  he  held  to  this  opinion.  And  in  this  he  was 
backed  by  Seward  and  Schurz  and  Bryant — all  of 
whom  laughed  at  the  alarms.  Not  a  few  people  in 
the  South — for  in  every  State  there  were  groups  of 
Unionists — kept  writing  him,  not  to  be  frightened, 
that  although  there  might  be  disorder  if  he  were 
elected,  there  certainly  would  not  be  secession. 

But  suppose  they  should  try  it?    He  had  to  ask 


1 66  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

himself  that.  And  did.  Well,  there  was  no  doubt  at 
all  in  his  mind  about  what  his  duty  would  be — he 
must  preserve  the  Union. 

You  see,  then,  that  even  before  his  election,  his 
problem  had  begun  to  change,  that  instead  of  its 
being  a  fight  to  keep  slavery  back  where  it  legally 
belonged,  it  looked  as  if  it  might  become  a  fight  to 
keep  the  Union  together. 

In  November,  the  hopes  of  the  Republicans  were 
realized — Mr.  Lincoln  was  elected.  No  sooner  was 
this  done,  however,  than  he  saw  how  mistaken  he  had 
been  in  his  confidence  that  the  Disunionists  would  not 
carry  out  their  threats.  Seven  States,  one  after  the 
other,  quickly  left  the  Union,  and  as  they  left  they 
prepared  to  defend  themselves,  seizing  United  States 
forts  and  arsenals  within  their  reach  and  voting 
large  sums  for  arms.  Early  in  February  of  1861, 
these  states  united  in  a  new  government,  the  South 
ern  Confederacy  adopted  a  constitution,  elected  of 
ficers,  and  went  about  creating  an  army  and  navy.  In 
doing  this  they  were  quite  as  sure  that  they  were 
right  as  Mr.  Lincoln  was  sure  that  they  were  wrong. 
Just  as  he  believed  and  said  that  if  the  South  suc 
ceeded  in  extending  slavery  to  free  territory  they 
would  eventually  extend  it  into  the  free  States,  so 
the  South  believed  that  if  Mr.  Lincoln  and  his  party 
prevented  their  extending  slavery,  they  would  event 
ually  try  to  abolish  it,  even  where  it  had  been  made 
legal.  If  we  cannot  live  and  do  what  we  think  right 
within  the  Union,  they  said,  we  will  leave  it  and 
establish  a  government  where  we  can  follow  out  our 
own  ideas  of  what  is  right  and  what  is  wrong.  This 


The  Big  Giant  of  Illinois  167 

meant,  of  course,  that  the  Disunionists  did  not  share 
Mr.  Lincoln's  strong  devotion  to  the  Union. 

While  all  this  was  going  on,  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
sitting  in  Springfield.  Not  until  after  his  inaugura 
tion  on  March  4th  would  he  have  the  power  to  lift 
his  voice  or  take  a  step  to  interfere  with  what  the 
seceding  States  were  doing.  The  barn  door  was 
open,  the  horse  was  being  stolen  before  his  eyes,  and 
he  could  do  nothing.  It  was  even  doubtful  if,  when 
he  finally  did  get  to  Washington,  he  could  find  the 
tracks.  Nothing  is  harder  than  not  to  have  the 
power  to  lift  your  hand  when  something  you  love  is 
being  destroyed.  The  helpless  Republicans  were  dis 
tracted.  There  were  some  in  the  party  who  said, 
"Let  them  go."  There  were  others  who  said  "Let's 
compromise — give  them  what  they  want."  And 
there  were  still  others  who  said  with  Mr.  Lincoln 
in  1856,  "We  won't  go  out  of  the  Union,  and  you 
shan't."  That  is,  the  united  party  that  had  elected 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  becoming  a  divided  party;  and  each 
faction  was  besieging  Mr.  Lincoln  to  adopt  its  way 
of  thinking. 

Thousands  of  letters  and  hundreds  of  visitors 
poured  into  Springfield — begging  him  to  stand  by  his 
guns,  to  spike  his  guns,  to  deliver  his  guns  to  the 
Disunionists.  Threats  filled  his  mail — threats  of 
hanging,  of  shooting,  of  kidnaping.  He  kept  his 
head  through  it  all,  and  he  held  his  tongue  as  well, 
going  about  his  preparations  for  Washington,  select 
ing  his  Cabinet,  writing  his  inaugural  address,  closing 
up  his  law  business,  though  not  taking  down  his 
"shingle."  "Let  it  hang  there  undisturbed,"  he  told 


1 68  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

his  partner.  "If  I  live,  I  am  coming  back  some  time 
and  then  we  will  go  right  on  practicing  law  as  if 
nothing  had  happened."  He  went  out  of  his  way  to 
say  good-by  to  all  his  old  friends,  and  took  a  day  off 
to  visit  his  father's  grave  in  Coles  County,  and  to 
pass  a  few  hours  with  his  beloved  stepmother,  now 
over  seventy  years  old.  The  parting  with  her  was 
the  saddest  of  all  for,  far  away  in  the  country,  as 
she  was,  the  threats  against  Mr.  Lincoln's  life  had 
reached  her,  and  she  had  come  to  feel  that  she  would 
never  see  him  alive  again. 

At  last  everything  was  done,  and  on  the  evening 
of  February  n,  1861,  Mr.  Lincoln  and  his  family 
and  a  large  party  of  friends  left  Springfield  for 
Washington.  As  he  stood  at  the  end  of  his  car  look 
ing  over  the  great  gathering,  he  made  a  little  parting 
speech,  which  is  counted  by  lovers  of  good  English 
one  of  the  most  perfect  things  he  ever  said.  There 
were  boys  of  fourteen  in  that  crowd  who  were  so 
deeply  moved  by  it  that  they  were  able  to  repeat 
it  as  long  as  they  lived. 

"My  friends,  no  one,  not  in  my  situation,  can 
appreciate  my  feeling  of  sadness  at  this  parting.  To 
this  place,  and  the  kindness  of  these  people,  I  owe 
everything.  Here  I  have  lived  a  quarter  of  a  cen 
tury,  and  have  passed  from  a  young  to  an  old  man. 
Here  my  children  have  been  born  and  one  is  buried. 
I  now  leave,  not  knowing  when  or  whether  ever  I 
may  return,  with  a  task  before  me  greater  than  that 
which  rested  upon  Washington.  Without  the  assist 
ance  of  that  Divine  Being  who  ever  attended  him,  I 
cannot  succeed.  With  that  assistance,  I  cannot  fail. 


The  Big  Giant  of  Illinois  169 

Trusting  in  Him  who  can  go  with  me,  and  remain 
vith  you,  and  be  everywhere  for  good,  let  us  confi 
dently  hope  all  will  yet  be  well.  To  His  care  com 
mending  you,  as  I  hope  in  your  prayers  you  will 
commend  me,  I  bid  you  an  affectionate  farewell." 

Although  Mr.  Lincoln  knew  that  there  were  many 
people  who  thought  he  would  never  reach  Washing 
ton  alive,  and  the  probability  was  that  there  were  a 
few  people  who  had  sworn  that  he  should  never  live 
to  be  inaugurated,  he  did  not  allow  his  danger  to  in 
terfere  in  the  least  with  the  program  of  receptions 
and  speech-making  that  had  been  laid  out  for  him. 
He  made  every  speech  and  shook  every  hand.  He 
even  remembered  at  one  place  to  ask  from  the  tail 
end  of  his  car  for  a  little  girl  who,  a  few  months  be 
fore,  had  written  him  a  letter,  asking  if  he  had  any 
little  girls  and  telling  him  that  she  thought  he  would 
look  better  with  whiskers.  Mr.  Lincoln  had  an 
swered  her  that  he  regretted  the  necessity  of  say 
ing  that  he  had  no  daughter,  but  that  he  had  three 
sons,  one  seventeen,  one  nine,  and  one  seven.  As 
to  the  whiskers,  he  wrote  her,  "As  I  have  never 
worn  any,  don't  you  think  that  people  would  call  it 
a  piece  of  silly  affectation  were  I  to  begin  wearing 
them  now?"  Regardless,  however,  of  what  people 
might  think  he  had  actually  begun  to  grow  the  whisk 
ers,  and  passing  through  the  town  where  the  little  girl 
lived,  he  asked  for  her.  Of  course,  she  was  there. 
Who  would  not  be,  having  received  a  letter  from 
him?  And  when  he  called  for  her  she  came  forward 
with  a  great  bunch  of  flowers  for  him,  and  received 
in  return  a  hearty  kiss  of  thanks. 


170  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

When  the  program  had  been  carried  out  in  full, 
all  the  speeches  made — the  last  was  at  Harrisburg 
on  February  22d — he  heeded  the  warnings  of  detec 
tives  and  friends  that  a  plot  to  assassinate  him  as  he 
passed  through  Baltimore  had  been  discovered,  and, 
slipping  away  from  his  party,  took  an  earlier  train 
than  that  which  he  had  been  announced  to  take,  and 
at  daylight  on  February  23d,  was  safe  in  the  capital. 

On  March  4th  came  the  inauguration.  Never  was 
an  inaugural  address  listened  to  with  such  anxiety. 
What  would  he  say?  What  would  he  say  about  the 
new  government  that  the  seceding  States  had 
formed?  What  would  he  say  about  the  forts  and 
arsenals  that  they  had  seized?  Would  he  say,  Go 
in  peace  I  Or  would  he  hold  to  his  view  that  the 
Union  could  not  be  broken? 

What  he  did  say  was  not  harsh,  but  it  was  firm. 
What  it  amounted  to  was  that,  in  his  judgment,  the 
Union  was  made  to  last,  that  no  State  could  vote 
itself  out,  that  in  spite  of  what  had  been  happening 
in  the  South,  he  regarded  the  Union  still  unbroken, 
and  that  he  should  go  ahead,  administering  the  laws 
everywhere,  holding  the  forts,  collecting  custom 
duties,  distributing  the  mails.  He  should  not  in 
vade  the  seceding  States  or  use  force  against  them. 
Kindly  and  affectionately  he  begged  the  dissatisfied 
not  to  take  in  hot  haste  a  step  which  they  would  never 
take  deliberately,  but  to  "think  long  and  well." 
"Nothing  valuable  can  be  lost  by  taking  time,"  he 
counseled  them.  At  the  end,  he  again  assured  them 
"the  government  will  not  assail  you.  You  can  have 
no  conflict  without  being  yourself  the  aggressor." 


The  Big  Giant  of  Illinois  I?1 

But  in  the  next  sentence  he  warned  them :    "You  have 
no  oath  registered  in  heaven  to  destroy  the  govern 
ment,  while  I  shall  have  the  most  solemn  one  to 
preserve  and  protect  and  defend  it." 
A  moment  later  he  took  that  oath. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

ARMED  WITH  A  SINGLE  PURPOSE 

To  front  a  lie  in  arms  and  not  to  yield 
This  shows,  methinks,  God's  plan 
And  measures  of  a  stalwart  man. 

JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWBLL. 

IT  often  happens  when  a  man  takes  a  splendid 
oath — like  that  of  Abraham  Lincoln  on  March 
4,  1 86 1,  "to  preserve,  to  protect  and  to  defend'* 
the  Constitution — that  he  does  not  see  definitely 
what  it  means  in  conduct;  that  is,  he  has  no  clear 
idea  as  to  how  he  is  going  to  make  good.  Mr.  Lin 
coln,  when  he  took  his  oath,  did  see.  "My  course  is 
as  plain  as  a  turnpike  road,"  he  told  one  of  his 
friends. 

He  had  mentioned  several  things  in  his  inaugural 
address  that  he  saw  on  this  "turnpike  road."  One 
was  to  hold  the  forts  that  belonged  to  the  United 
States. 

Now,  as  we  have  seen,  the  seven  States  in  going 
out  of  the  Union  had  taken  possession  not  only  of 
the  forts  but  of  the  arsenals,  dockyards,  custom 
houses — everything  belonging  to  the  United  States 
within  their  borders.  Nothing  was  left  excepting 
three  forts  along  the  Florida  coast,  and  one  in  the 
center  of  Charleston  Harbor — Fort  Sumter,  held  by 

172 


Armed  with  a  Single  Purpose  173 

a  small  group  of  United  States  soldiers  under  Major 
Robert  Anderson. 

According  to  Mr.  Lincoln's  oath,  he  must  hold 
Sumter.  Whether  he  did  or  not  would  be  a  test  of 
the  kind  of  a  President  he  would  prove  to  be — one 
who  meant  what  he  said,  or  one  who,  when  he  saw 
that  what  he  said  carried  serious  consequences  with 
it,  would  squirm  out. 

One  of  the  earliest  letters  that  came  to  him  on  his 
first  full  day  as  President  of  the  United  States  was 
from  Major  Anderson,  telling  him  that  he  had 
neither  the  men  nor  the  guns  and  ammunition  to  de 
fend  himself;  worse  still,  that  his  provisions  were 
almost  gone.  He  might  pull  through  on  dry  bread, 
pork,  and  water  for  four  weeks,  but  no  longer.  If 
they  were  to  be  relieved,  Major  Anderson  said,  it 
would  take  20,000  men. 

He  was  not  exaggerating.  Fort  Sumter  was 
nearly  encircled  by  hostile  forts  and  batteries,  and 
in  January,  when  President  Buchanan  had  attempted 
to  send  provisions,  the  vessel  had  been  fired  upon  by 
the  determined  South  Carolinians  and  had  retired. 
The  harbor  was  stronger  now  than  in  January  and 
South  Carolina  no  less  determined  that  the  North 
should  not  reach  Fort  Sumter  with  food  supplies  or 
guns. 

What  should  be  done?  There  were  no  20,000 
men  on  which  Mr.  Lincoln  could  put  his  hands.  The 
regular  army  at  that  moment  numbered  only  about 
16,000  men,  and  most  of  these  were  in  the  West 
where  Indian  troubles  called  for  constant  attention. 
Moreover,  nearly  one  third  of  their  officers  had  al- 


174  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

ready  gone  over  to  the  Confederacy.  The  small 
navy  was  also  scattered  in  many  different  waters. 
There  were  many  people  in  the  North  who  wrote 
Mr.  Lincoln  that,  since  he  had  no  force  to  relieve 
the  fort,  he  had  better  surrender  it.  There  were 
others  who,  while  they  did  not  quite  like  to  use  the 
word  "surrender,"  urged  that  there  be  no  effort  to 
relieve  Major  Anderson,  since  it  would  surely  cause 
war. 

A  man  must  carry  out  his  plans  with  the  tools  in 
his  hands.  Mr.  Lincoln  saw  only  one  thing  as  pos 
sible,  and  that  was  to  send  the  garrison  provisions. 
He  would  not  allow  brave  men  as  they  had  shown 
themselves  to  go  hungry,  he  said,  nor  would  he  give 
up  the  fort;  that  would  be  to  admit  the  justice  of  the 
Southern  cause  and  go  back  on  his  word.  Instead 
of  weakening  he  was  every  day  feeling  more  resolute 
about  the  matter  of  disunion.  He  worked  con 
stantly  on  the  case  in  his  own  mind.  What  he  asked 
was  whether,  when  an  election  had  gone  against  a 
group  of  citizens  in  a  republic,  they  had  a  right  to 
break  up  the  country.  If  this  could  be  done,  then 
Mr.  Lincoln  felt  that  there  was  no  use  trying  to 
establish  a  "government  of  the  people  by  the  same 
people."  He  asked  himself  whether  there  might  not 
be  a  fatal  weakness  in  all  republics.  "Must  a  gov 
ernment  of  necessity  be  too  strong  for  the  liberties 
of  its  own  people  or  too  weak  to  maintain  its  own 
existence?"  It  is  not  only  governments  that  have  to 
ask  themselves  this  question  in  this  life.  It  is  rare 
indeed  when  any  group  of  people,  young  or  old,  come 
together,  that  sooner  or  later  they  do  not  find  that  if 


Armed  with  a  Single  Purpose  175 

they  become  strong  there  is  danger  of  their  becom 
ing  tyrannical  and  that  if  they  remain  weak  there  is 
danger  of  their  going  out  of  existence.  And  this  is 
just  as  true  of  the  individual  as  it  is  of  a  group.  If 
you  are  strong,  you  must  look  out  or  you  will  be  a 
tyrant.  If  you  are  weak,  you  must  look  out  or  you 
will  be  a  nobody. 

This  was  what  Mr.  Lincoln  was  going  over  in  his 
own  mind  at  this  time.  His  conclusion  was  that  it 
was  so  important,  not  only  for  the  United  States  but 
for  the  future  of  the  world,  that  it  be  proved  that  a 
republic  can  be  strong  enough  not  only  to  resist  at 
tacks  from  the  outside  but  to  settle  troubles  inside, 
that  it  was  worth  risking  a  war  to  get  the  proof. 

No,  he  would  not  break  his  word:  he  would  send 
provisions  to  Fort  Sumter;  but  at  the  same  time  he 
would  send  word  to  the  governor  of  South  Carolina 
that,  in  doing  this,  he  would  not  now  put  in  men, 
arms,  nor  ammunition;  and  that,  if  later  he  con 
cluded  to  do  so,  he  would  notify  him  unless,  of 
course,  there  should  be  an  attack  upon  the  fort. 

The  provisions  were  sent;  but  before  they  reached 
the  fort  it  was  bombarded.  The  bombardment  be 
gan  on  the  morning  of  April  12,  1861.  Major  An 
derson  and  his  men  held  out  all  that  day  and  the 
next.  The  night  of  April  I3th,  Mr.  Lincoln  had  a 
dream.  He  was  sailing  rapidly  on  a  singular  and 
indescribable  vessel  toward  a  dark  and  indefinite 
shore.  The  next  morning,  the  I4th,  when  news 
came  that  Sumter  had  fallen,  he  connected  the  fall 
with  his  dream.  He  had  reached  the  dark  shore. 

Mr.  Lincoln  had  told  the  seceding  States  in  his 


Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

inaugural  address  that  they  could  have  no  conflict 
without  being  themselves  the  aggressors.  Clearly 
they  were  now  the  aggressors,  and  there  was  no  more 
question  in  the  mind  of  the  North  than  there  was  in 
his  mind  that  since  the  seceding  States  were  unwilling 
to  trust  to  "time,  discussion,  and  the  ballot  box"  as 
he  had  advised,  the  government  must  take  back  by 
force  the  property  they  had  seized  and  which  they 
had  proved  they  meant  to  hold  by  force. 

And  so  he  at  once  issued  a  call  for  75,000  men. 
With  that  number  he  and  his  Cabinet  believed  that 
they  could  suppress  the  rebellion,  as  they  called  it. 

But  the  fall  of  Sumter  and  this  call  for  men  to 
subdue  them  was  all  that  was  needed  in  the  South  to 
unite  both  Secessionists  and  Union  men.  Still  more 
serious,  the  Southern  Confederacy  was  quickly  en 
larged  now  that  the  tug  had  come — four  more  States 
joining  fortunes  with  the  seven  that  were  out  when 
the  Republicans  came  in.  A  third  group — the  Bor 
der  States — complicated  Mr.  Lincoln's  situation,  for 
these  States — Maryland,  Kentucky,  and  Missouri — 
could  not  decide  between  the  contestants.  They  were 
pulled  both  ways.  They  would  not  go  out  of  the 
Union,  but  they  would  not  fight  the  South.  Mr.  Lin 
coln's  problem  was  not  merely  putting  down  a  rebel 
lion.  It  was  a  question  of  overwhelming  a  hostile 
country;  that  is,  it  was  war.  The  75,000  men  he 
had  called  for  were  not  a  drop  in  the  bucket. 

The  country  itself  felt  this,  and  all  over  the  North 
there  was  hardly  a  town  in  which,  with  the  news  of 
the  fall  of  Sumter,  young  and  old  men  did  not  hasten 
to  form  companies  to  offer  to  the  government.  Meet- 


Armed  with  a  Single  Purpose  177 

ings  were  called  in  churches,  schools,  and  courthouses 
and  on  the  village  greens,  and  before  the  minister  or 
schoolmaster  or  judge  or  politician  who  urged  the  de 
fense  of  the  Union  had  time  to  finish  his  speech, 
there  was  a  rush  of  men  and  boys  to  put  down  their 
names.  Before  many  weeks  went  by  the  Washington 
government  was  swamped  with  the  men  that  flowed 
into  the  new  army. 

One  of  our  greatest  difficulties,  Mr.  Lincoln  told 
Congress  on  July  4,  1861,  when  he  called  them  to 
gether  to  report  what  he  had  done  and  to  ask  for 
money  to  carry  on  the  war,  has  been  to  avoid  receiv 
ing  troops  faster  than  we  could  take  care  of  them. 
"The  people  will  save  their  government,"  he  said, 
"if  the  government  itself  will  do  its  part  only  indif 
ferently  well." 

It  was  not  only  men  that  were  rushed  to  Wash 
ington,  but  it  was  offers  of  funds  from  States  and 
from  individuals.  All  the  inventors  of  the  country 
set  themselves  to  work  to  improve  weapons  and 
boats.  All  the  people  who  knew  anything  about 
military  science  rushed  in  to  offer  themselves  as 
instructors.  The  doctors  came  to  build  up  hospitals, 
and  women  came  to  offer  themselves  as  nurses. 

In  this  instant  answer  to  the  guns  that  destroyed 
Sumter,  the  action  of  no  one  man  was  more  hearten 
ing  to  Mr.  Lincoln  than  that  of  his  antagonist  in  his 
famous  fight  against  the  extension  of  slavery  to  free 
soil — Stephen  Douglas.  Mr.  Douglas  had  been  de 
feated  for  the  presidency  when  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
elected.  He  was  a  senator  at  that  time  and  in  a 
position  to  know  better  than  Mr.  Lincoln  did  just 


178  Boy  Scouts9  Life  of  Lincoln 

how  resolute  the  South  was  in  its  threat  to  break 
up  the  Union.  This  was  something  he  would  not 
listen  to.  He  was  afraid  Mr.  Lincoln  would  weaken 
— not  carry  out  his  promise  to  hold  the  forts,  and 
when  finally  he  did  and  Sumter  was  fired  on,  Mr. 
Douglas  went  to  him,  offering  him  all  his  great  in 
fluence  to  back  him.  He  wired  his  decision  to  all  his 
followers  and  at  once  went  out  to  speak  for  the 
Union — beginning  in  Illinois  itself.  Never  had  he 
been  so  eloquent — not  Demosthenes  or  Mirabeau  or 
Patrick  Henry  were  greater,  his  hearers  declared. 
His  courage  and  patriotism  at  this  critical  moment 
were  remembered  the  longer  because  this  was  his 
last  campaign.  He  died  suddenly  only  a  few  weeks 
after  the  first  call  for  troops  to  defend  the  Union. 

In  the  South  the  same  thing  was  happening.  Every 
man,  woman,  and  child  put  himself  and  everything 
he  had  at  the  command  of  the  Confederate  Govern 
ment.  There  they  did  not  call  themselves  rebels, 
of  course.  They  were  defending  their  country — a 
country  which  they  believed  they  had  a  right  to 
form. 

If  Mr.  Lincoln  believed — and  he  seemed  at  first 
to  have  the  idea — that  the  North  would  find  it  easy 
to  overthrow  the  South,  he  soon  was  disappointed. 
The  great  army  which  gathered  around  Washington 
had  its  first  trial  in  July  of  1861 — only  a  few  miles 
south  of  Washington,  at  a  place  called  Bull  Run. 
The  battle  was  on  a  Sunday,  and  a  good  many  men 
went  in  carriages  or  on  horseback  down  into  Vir 
ginia  to  see  it.  But  before  night  they  were  back  in 
hot  haste — the  Northern  army  had  been  defeated, 


Armed  with  a  Single  Purpose  179 

and  was  in  retreat.  It  looked  at  first  as  if  Washing 
ton  itself  might  be  captured. 

It  was  a  terrible  shock  to  the  confident  North,  and 
a  horrible  disappointment  to  Mr.  Lincoln.  Why 
had  it  happened?  That  was  what  he  set  himself  to 
decide.  What  was  their  weakness?  While  he  was 
trying  to  find  this  out,  a  great  many  men  were  trying 
to  make  out  that  it  was  not  defeat  but  a  panic  caused 
by  teamsters  and  sight-seers.  "I  see,"  Mr.  Lincoln 
said  one  day  to  one  of  these  people,  uwe  whipped 
the  enemy  and  then  ran  away  from  him." 

He  was  not  the  man  to  conceal  or  explain  away 
a  reverse  or  to  shirk  his  responsibility  in  connection 
with  one.  He  knew  that  the  Constitution  made  the 
President  of  the  United  States  the  commander  in 
chief  of  the  army  and  navy,  and  that,  though  he  had 
a  War  Department  and  a  Navy  Department  and 
many  officers  and  admirals,  he  must  bear  the  burden 
for  whatever  went  wrong.  The  battle  of  Bull  Run 
was  his  defeat.  How  could  he  prevent  another? 

Mr.  Lincoln  believed  that  the  defeat  was  charge 
able  largely  to  green  soldiers  and  inexperienced  of 
ficers.  He  knew  the  battle  had  been  fought  before 
the  army  was  ready  because  the  North  had  been  long 
urging,  at  the  top  of  its  voice,  "On  to  Richmond." 
The  North  must  learn  patience.  He  must  have  a 
trained  and  disciplined  army  that  would  not  be 
stampeded  by  a  panic  of  its  teamsters  if  Richmond 
was  to  be  taken.  For  this  he  must  have  a  com 
mander  who  knew  the  business  of  training  and  in 
whom  the  North  would  have  confidence.  There  was 
one  man  who  seemed  to  be  fit  for  the  place,  Gen. 


l8o  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

George  B.  McClellan,  who  had  been  doing  work  in 
West  Virginia  of  which  the  country  thought  well, 
and  it  was  General  McClellan  that  Lincoln  now  made 
commander  of  the  Department  of  the  Potomac  with 
an  order  to  prepare  the  army  to  take  Richmond. 

The  camp  in  which  this  work  was  to  be  done  was 
on  the  heights  across  the  river  from  Washington, 
and  in  the  next  month  nobody  had  eyes  for  any  other 
field.  It  was  the  army  they  all  believed  would  win 
the  war,  so  why  trouble  about  the  smaller  armies 
scattered  in  Missouri,  Kentucky,  or  Tennessee?  No 
request  of  McClellan's  was  denied — men  and  money 
flowed  freely  to  him.  And  he  did  his  part,  rapidly 
turning  the  awkward,  untrained  squads  into  splendid, 
efficient  companies. 

All  through  the  fall  of  1861  the  country  watched 
the  new  army  drilling  and  maneuvering,  improving 
its  camp,  building  fortifications  around  Washing 
ton,  and  daily  becoming  more  wonderful  to  look  at. 
Thousands  came  to  look  at  it,  too,  and  conducted  by 
members  of  Congress  or  the  Cabinet,  made  sight 
seeing  visits  through  the  camp  or  watched  the  bril 
liant  reviews. 

No  visitor  came  oftener  to  McClellan's  camp 
than  Mr.  Lincoln  himself,  and  none  gave  closer  at 
tention  to  every  detail  of  camp  life,  spoke  to  more 
private  soldiers,  asked  more  questions  of  the  officers. 
His  hope,  like  that  of  the  country,  was  in  this  great 
army  which  McClellan  was  bringing  into  such  per 
fect  form. 

But  as  the  winter  approached  people  became  anx- 


Armed  with  a  Single  Purpose  181 

ious.  Why  did  not  this  wonderful  army  do  some 
thing?  Everything  had  been  done  for  it ;  why  not  on 
to  Richmond?  Mr.  Lincoln,  who  had  felt  strongly 
that  McClellan  should  not  be  asked  to  move  until 
he  was  ready,  finally  began  to  prod  him;  but  always 
the  general  had  excuses — the  army  lacked  this  or 
that;  the  enemy  outnumbered  him;  he  was  not  ready. 
He  trained  and  trained  and  trained,  but  advance  he 
would  not. 

As  the  pressure  of  the  government  and  the  de 
mand  of  the  country  became  stronger,  he  became 
apparently  more  obstinate  in  his  resolve  not  to  move 
until  he  chose,  and  to  Mr.  Lincoln  he  became  actu 
ally  insolent,  often  keeping  him  waiting  when  he 
came  to  his  headquarters,  as  well  as  saying  con 
temptuous  things  about  him  which  were  repeated 
over  the  country.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  very  patient 
under  all  this.  When  one  day  he  had  been  kept 
waiting  half  an  hour  by  the  general  and  some  indig 
nant  friend  resented  it,  he  said,  "I  will  hold  McClel 
lan' s  horse  if  he  will  give  us  a  victory." 

It  was  not  McClellan's  insolence  that  troubled 
him,  it  was  a  fear  that,  splendid  as  the  general  might 
be  as  a  maker  of  armies,  he  was  not  the  one  to  use 
them.  McClellan  was  troubled  by  what  he  called 
the  "slows ;"  he  was  not  a  fighter.  And  he  must  have 
a  fighter.  Was  there  one  anywhere  ? 

He  began  to  study  carefully  day  by  day  what  the 
commanding  officers  in  other  fields  were  doing.  He 
was  like  the  leader  of  a  league  ball  team,  who  must 
be  keeping  his  eye  on  the  teams  of  the  country  to  see 


1 82  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

what  new  and  promising  talent  is  developing  so  that 
he  will  be  ready,  when  somebody  fails  him,  to  put  his 
hand  on  material  in  which  there  is  hope. 

Almost  every  day  and  often  at  night  he  went  to 
the  telegraph  office,  which  was  only  across  the  street 
from  the  White  House,  and,  sitting  by  the  desk  of 
the  telegraph  operator,  looked  over  the  big  grist  of 
telegrams  which  were  constantly  coming  in,  study 
ing  each  man's  work.  He  began  to  send  many  let 
ters  and  telegrams  to  these  officers,  asking  them 
questions,  giving  them  advice,  urging  them  to  be 
more  cautious  here  or  to  be  more  daring  there.  He 
encouraged  them  to  action,  praised  them  if  they  suc 
ceeded,  and  came  quickly  to  their  relief  if  they  failed. 
Every  officer  in  the  long  chain  which  the  North  was 
trying  to  stretch  around  the  Confederacy  soon  began 
to  see  that  the  President's  eye  was  on  him.  He  be 
gan  to  understand,  too,  that  he  could  not  fool  the 
President,  that  he  might  be  a  civilian  but  that  he  had 
a  surprising  sense  of  military  affairs. 

This  understanding  on  Mr.  Lincoln's  part  was  no 
accident.  He  had  been  working  night  and  day  to  fit 
himself  to  play  his  part  as  a  commander  in  chief  by 
learning  something  of  military  science.  He  read  the 
best  books  on  the  subject,  talked  them  over  with  the 
educated  officers  of  the  army,  and  applied  what  he 
learned  to  his  own  problem.  That  is,  he  did  what 
he  had  done  back  in  1832  when  he  saw  a  chance  to 
earn  his  living  by  surveying  instead  of  by  the  hard 
labor  of  rail-splitting  and  flatboat  steering;  when  he 
made  up  his  mind  in  1849  to  let  politics  alone  and 


Armed  with  a  Single  Purpose  183 

become  a  first  class  lawyer — he  studied  night  and  day 
the  science  he  must  practice. 

His  military  problem,  he  saw,  was  to  pen  up  the 
Confederates  in  their  own  States — not  only  prevent 
ing  them  from  invading  the  North  but  from  trading 
with  any  part  of  this  or  any  other  country.  You  can 
imagine  him  studying  out  on  the  great  map  which 
hung  in  his  office  in  the  White  House  what  must  be 
done  to  shut  them  in.  The  western  boundary  of  the 
Southern  Confederacy  was  made  up  of  Texas,  Ar 
kansas,  and  Missouri;  its  northern  boundary  of  Ken 
tucky,  West  Virginia,  and  Maryland.  On  the  east 
was  the  Atlantic  and  on  the  south  the  Gulf  of  Mex 
ico.  Mr.  Lincoln  saw  that,  if  possible,  he  must 
drive  the  defenders  of  the  Confederacy  east 
of  the  Mississippi,  bringing  that  river  under 
Union  control  and  giving  him  New  Orleans  and 
its  port.  He  must  hold  his  northern  line  and 
blockade  the  Atlantic  and  Gulf  ports  so  that  the 
Confederates  could  neither  get  in  nor  out.  This  was 
the  general  plan.  The  first  and  far  and  away  the 
most  important  part  of  this  plan  was  to  take  Rich 
mond,  which  had  been  made  the  capital  of  the  enemy 
government  when  Virginia  joined  the  Confederacy. 
If  this  plan  of  penning  up  the  Confederacy,  opening 
the  Mississippi,  and  capturing  Richmond  was  to  be 
promptly  carried  out,  Mr.  Lincoln  realized  early  in 
the  war  that  it  must  be  by  outmatching  the  enemy  in 
strategy.  He  had  the  greater  numbers,  but  the  ene 
my  was  quicker  on  his  feet.  "We  must  fail,"  he  told 
one  of  his  generals  in  January  of  1862,  while  he  was 


1 84  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

waiting  in  vain  for  McClellan  to  move,  "unless  we 
find  some  way  of  making  our  advantage  an  over 
match  for  his ;  this  can  only  be  done  by  menacing  him 
with  superior  forces  at  different  points  at  the  same 
time,  so  that  we  can  safely  attack  one  or  both  if  he 
makes  no  change;  and  if  he  weakens  one  to 
strengthen  the  other,  forbear  to  attack  the  strength 
ened  one,  and  seize  and  hold  the  weakened  one,  gain 
ing  so  much." 

This  idea  of  threatening  at  two  points  so  as  to 
tempt  the  enemy  to  divide  his  forces,  and  of  attack 
ing  quickly  any  point  known  to  be  weakened  would  be 
good  strategy  in  any  game,  you  will  agree.  Mr. 
Lincoln  constantly  urged  it  on  his  generals.  Once 
when  Lee  had  stretched  his  line  in  Virginia  over  a 
long  distance,  he  telegraphed  to  General  Hooker, 
then  the  commander  of  the  Army  of  the  Potomac : 
"If  the  head  of  Lee's  army  is  at  Martinsburg  and 
the  tail  of  it  on  the  plank  road  between  Fredericks- 
burg  and  Chancellorsville,  the  animal  must  be  very 
slim  somewhere.  Could  you  not  break  him  ?" 

But  this  kind  of  strategy,  which  he  saw  almost  at 
the  start  to  be  essential  if  the  Union  armies  were  to 
outmatch  those  of  the  South,  was  the  very  strategy 
he  found  his  generals  were  the  slowest  to  under 
stand  and  adopt. 

It  was  not  only  military  science  which  interested 
him,  but  everything  connected  with  the  job  of  war. 
He  was  especially  keen  on  getting  better  rifles,  and 
inventors  found  that  frequently  when  they  could  get 
no  hearing  at  the  War  Department,  Mr.  Lincoln 
would  take  time  to  test  their  guns  himself.  He  had 


Armed  with  a  Single  Purpose  185 

found  a  clerk  in  the  Navy  Department  who  was  as 
interested  as  he  in  firearms,  and  whenever  he  got  his 
hands  on  a  new  rifle  he  would  ask  this  man  to  "go 
shooting"  with  him.  His  target  was  usually  a  sheet 
of  white  government  note  paper  pinned  to  a  tree. 
From  this  he  would  pace  off  eighty  to  one  hundred 
feet,  take  a  quick  aim,  and  often  put  almost  every 
bullet  through  the  paper.  He  enjoyed  the  sport 
like  a  boy. 

The  balloon  began  to  be  used  early  in  the  war  for 
observation  purposes,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  delighted  in 
watching  it  sailing  over  Washington  or  swaying 
above  the  troops.  It  was  he,  too,  who  insisted  that 
John  Ericsson,  the  famous  Swedish  inventor,  should 
have  a  chance  to  try  out  the  plans  for  an  armored 
monitor  which  he  wanted  to  build. 

Ericsson's  idea  was  to  mount  on  a  raft  a  round 
turret  furnished  with  guns  and  to  encase  the  whole 
thing  in  armor.  Up  to  that  time  our  navy  was  built 
entirely  of  wood,  and  there  was  doubt  about  whether 
it  was  possible  to  use  armor.  Mr.  Lincoln's  en 
couragement  of  Ericsson  proved  one  of  the  most 
fortunate  things  in  the  early  part  of  the  war. 

The  Confederates,  ahead  of  the  Unionists  in 
using  the  idea,  had  already  covered  the  "Merrimac" 
with  plate.  When  she  came  out  of  the  Norfolk  navy 
yard  she  destroyed  two  big  wooden  Union  vessels, 
with  almost  no  trouble  at  all.  They,  of  course,  had 
not  a  shadow  of  a  chance  against  her  iron  sides. 
There  was  terror  throughout  the  North  at  this  re 
sult.  What  could  not  the  "Merrimac"  do  in  their 
ports  if  the  Confederates  sent  her  out?  No  gun 


1 86  Boy  Scouts9  Life  of  Lincoln 

could  touch  her.  What  would  she  do  to  Washington 
if  she  came  up  the  Potomac? 

The  answer  came  quickly.  The  queer  ironclad 
thing  that  John  Ericsson  had  built  was  already  on 
its  way  south.  It  came  in  such  a  hurry  that  it  was 
actually  finished  on  the  way.  When  the  "Merrimac" 
steamed  out  the  morning  after  the  "Monitor"  ar 
rived,  to  sink  another  wooden  ship,  she  was  faced 
by  what  looked  like  ua  cheese  box  on  a  raft."  John 
Ericsson's  "Monitor"  might  look  queer,  but  it  didn't 
take  her  long  so  to  batter  the  "Merrimac"  that  she 
was  glad  to  retreat.  This  contest  was  the  beginning 
of  the  ironclad  navies  of  the  world.  People  in 
Washington  who  were  impatient  with  the  President's 
willingness  to  try  out  new  ideas  were  a  little  more 
respectful  after  this  experience. 

The  close  study  Mr.  Lincoln  was  giving  to  mili 
tary  matters  was  far  from  making  him  cocksure  or 
domineering.  His  generals  ought  to  know  better 
than  he  did.  He  had  put  them  there  to  do  certain 
work.  He  must  give  them  a  chance — not  "meddle ;" 
but  generals  who,  like  McClellan,  thought  Mr.  Lin 
coln's  patience  weakness  were  sure,  sooner  or  later, 
to  learn  their  mistake.  His  patience  had  a  limit.  As 
soon  as  he  was  convinced  that  a  man  was  not  doing 
what  he  had  been  given  a  fair  chance  to  do,  he  be 
came  every  inch  commander  in  chief.  This  was  long 
happening  in  McClellan's  case.  It  is  probable  that 
the  general  thought  Mr.  Lincoln  would  not  dare  to 
order  him  to  move  until  he  made  the  sign.  He 
thought  he  was  too  popular  with  the  army — there 
was  no  general  in  all  the  Civil  War  more  beloved 


Armed  with  a  Single  Purpose  187 

by  his  soldiers  than  General  McClellan — too  popu 
lar  in  the  North.  He  was  mistaken.  In  January, 
1862,  Mr.  Lincoln  asserted  himself  and  ordered  a 
general  advance  on  the  entire  front  on  Washington's 
birthday,  February  22d.  The  country  was  jubilant. 
The  war  was  going  on. 

McClellan  disobeyed,  making  all  his  old  excuses 
— and  his  disobedience  cost  him  dear,  for  it  turned  a 
great  part  of  the  public  against  him.  They  began  to 
call  him  "the  Virginia  creeper,"  and  even  a  traitor 
who  did  not  mean  to  fight — a  most  unjust  charge.  It 
was  not  until  April  that  finally  he  was  pried  from 
his  camp  and  the  march  on  Richmond  began. 

He  moved,  but  not  by  the  route  which  Mr.  Lincoln 
thought  the  common-sense  one,  directly  across  Vir 
ginia  to  Richmond,  fighting  as  he  went.  He  took  his 
army  down  the  Potomac,  landed  it  on  the  Peninsula, 
and  from  there  advanced.  Mr.  Lincoln,  of  course, 
had  the  power  to  compel  the  general  to  follow  the 
plan  he  preferred,  but  he  argued  that,  even  suppos 
ing  his  was  the  wiser  way,  no  man  does  as  well  on  a 
plan  which  he  has  been  forced  to  adopt  as  on  one 
he  has  worked  out  for  himself.  The  President 
therefore  consented  to  the  Peninsular  Campaign, 
making  one  condition,  that  a  certain  fixed  number  of 
troops  should  be  left  to  protect  Washington. 

If  you  will  look  at  a  map  you  will  see  why  this  was 
necessary.  By  taking  the  army  down  the  Potomac 
the  route  from  Richmond  to  Washington  was  left 
open.  The  Confederate  commander  in  chief,  Gen 
eral  Robert  E.  Lee,  was  too  able  a  soldier  to  miss 
such  a  chance — that  Mr,  Lincoln  knew.  He  knew,. 


1 88  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

too,  that  General  Lee  had  officers  under  him  who 
were  masters  of  quick  dashes  on  weak  spots — that  is, 
General  Lee  had  none  of  McClellan's  reluctance  to 
taking  a  chance — Washington  must  not  be  left  ex 
posed.  But  McClellan  did  not  leave  behind  the 
troops  agreed  upon,  and  when  Mr.  Lincoln  found 
this  out  he  ordered  them  back.  Moreover,  when 
ever  in  the  four  months'  campaign  he  thought  the 
Washington  garrison  weak,  he  held  back  troops 
McClellan  wanted  and  expected.  It  gave  the  general 
a  grievance — a  reason  for  his  failure  to  reach  Rich 
mond,  for,  though  he  did  advance  to  within  a  few 
miles  of  the  city,  did  do  some  brilliant  fighting,  in 
July  he  was  obliged  to  fall  back  on  the  James  River. 
The  real  reason  of  his  failure  was  probably  the 
reason  that  he  had  tarried  so  long  in  his  training 
camp;  overcaution,  exaggeration  of  the  enemies' 
numbers  and  equipment.  As  a  fact  he  seems  always 
to  have  had  the  larger  force,  but  he  had  none  of  the 
dash,  the  mobility,  the  ingenuity  of  the  Confeder 
ates.  At  the  outset  of  the  campaign,  for  instance, 
he  delayed  a  month  before  Yorktown,  making  the 
most  scientific  and  elaborate  preparation  to  reduce 
it,  only  to  find  when  he  attacked,  that  the  enemy  had 
gone  1 

When  Mr.  Lincoln  saw  that  the  campaign  on 
which  the  North  had  rested  all  its  hopes  for  so  long 
was  a  failure,  he  was,  as  he  said,  as  nearly  incon 
solable  as  he  could  be  and  live.  His  disappointment 
came  as  the  climax  to  a  series  of  private  as  well  as 
public  troubles  through  all  this  year  and  a  quarter 
of  war.  He  was  a  man  who  could  not  bear  to  see 


Armed  with  a  Single  Purpose  189 

stranger  or  friend  hurt — even  disappointed.  He 
had  a  friendly  heart,  which  needed  for  its  own  con 
tent  to  see  all  the  world  happy.  War  and  the  cal 
culated  killing  of  men  was  a  hideous  thing  to  him. 
And  yet  he  had  to  be  responsible  for  a  war,  and  from 
the  start  that  war  had  taken  from  him  people  that 
he  loved  dearly. 

One  of  the  first  of  these  was  an  Illinois  boy,  Elmer 
E.  Ellsworth.  Young  Ellsworth  had  been  known  all 
over  the  country  as  the  leader  of  the  Chicago  Zou 
aves — a  military  organization  which  both  by  its  uni 
form  and  its  brilliant  maneuvering  had  been  the  envy 
of  boys  and  young  men  everywhere.  Mr.  Lincoln 
brought  Ellsworth  to  Washington  and  made  him  a 
colonel  in  the  volunteer  service.  In  May,  1861,  he 
was  one  of  the  officers  of  an  expedition  sent  across 
the  Potomac  to  drive  the  enemy  from  Arlington  and 
Alexandria.  Mr.  Lincoln  had  been  able  to  see  from 
his  windows  in  Washington  a  Confederate  flag,  fly 
ing  from  a  staff  in  this  territory;  and  it  had  been  a 
great  annoyance  to  him.  As  the  Union  force  ap 
proached  this  flag,  young  Ellsworth  dashed  ahead 
and  tore  it  from  its  staff,  but  as  he  did  so  a  ball 
struck  and  killed  him.  His  death  hurt  Mr.  Lincoln 
cruelly.  He  immediately  wrote  to  Colonel  Ells 
worth's  parents — the  first  of  many  tender  letters  of 
consolation  which  he  was  to  write  before  the  war 
was  over. 

"Washington,  D.  C,  May  25,  1861. 
"To  the  Father  and  Mother  of 
Colonel  Elmer  E.  Ellsworth, 

"Mv  DEAR  SIR  AND  MADAME:  In  the  untimely  loss  of  your 
noble  son,  our  affliction  here  is  scarcely  less  than  your  own. 


190  Boy  Scouts9  Life  of  Lincoln 

So  much  of  promised  usefulness  to  one's  country,  and  of  bright 
hopes  for  one's  self  and  friends,  have  never  been  so  suddenly 
dashed  as  in  his  fall.  In  size,  in  years,  and  in  youthful  ap 
pearance  a  boy  only,  his  power  to  command  men  was  surpass 
ingly  great.  This  power,  combined  with  a  fine  intellect  and 
indomitable  energy,  and  a  taste  altogether  military,  constituted 
in  him,  as  seemed  to  me,  the  best  natural  talent  in  that  depart 
ment  I  ever  knew. 

"And  yet  he  was  singularly  modest  and  deferential  in  social 
intercourse.  My  acquaintance  with  him  began  less  than  two 
years  ago;  yet,  through  the  latter  half  of  the  intervening  period, 
it  was  as  intense  as  the  disparity  of  our  ages  and  my  engrossing 
engagements  would  permit.  To  me  he  appeared  to  have  no 
indulgences  or  pastimes,  and  I  never  heard  him  utter  a  profane 
or  an  intemperate  word.  What  was  conclusive  of  his  good 
heart,  he  never  forgot  his  parents.  The  honors  he  labored  for 
so  laudably,  and  for  which,  in  the  sad  end,  he  so  gallantly  gave 
his  life,  he  meant  for  them  no  less  than  for  himself. 

"In  the  hope  that  it  may  be  no  intrusion  upon  the  sacredness 
of  your  sorrow,  I  have  ventured  to  address  you  this  tribute  to 
the  memory  of  my  young  friend,  and  your  brave  and  early 
fallen  son. 

"May  God  give  you  the  consolation  which  is  beyond  all 
earthly  power.  Sincerely  your  friend  in  common  affliction, 

"A.  LINCOLN." 

In  October  the  President  received  a  second  blow, 
even  heavier.  This  was  at  the  battle  of  Ball's  Bluff, 
where  one  of  his  dearest  and  oldest  Illinois  friends, 
Colonel  E.  D.  Baker,  was  killed.  The  President  was 
at  General  McClellan's  headquarters  when  the  news 
came  in.  He  did  not  wait  to  hear  more,  but  with 
bowed  head,  tears  rolling  down  his  cheeks,  his  face 
pale  and  wan,  passed  out  of  the  building.  One  of 
the  newspaper  correspondents,  watching  him,  noted 
that  he  almost  fell  as  he  stepped  into  the  street  and 


Armed  with  a  Single  Purpose  191 

that,  as  he  walked  to  the  White  House,  both  hands 
were  pressed  upon  his  heart. 

In  February,  sorrow  came  still  closer  to  him,  into 
his  own  family,  when  Willie  Lincoln,  now  eleven 
years  old,  the  elder  of  the  two  boys  with  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Lincoln  in  the  White  House,  fell  ill  and  died. 
He  was  the  one  of  the  three  sons  most  like  Mr.  Lin 
coln  himself — gentle,  reflective,  and  studious.  "Just 
such  a  boy  as  I  was  at  his  age,"  Mr.  Lincoln  used 
to  say  as  he  watched  Willie  puzzling  over  his  prob 
lems  or  absorbed  in  his  reading.  His  father's  elec 
tion,  the  trip  to  Washington,  the  coming  of  the  war, 
had  all  been  of  deepest  interest  to  Willie  Lincoln. 
He  kept  a  journal,  a  scrapbook,  and  many  souvenirs. 
After  the  battle  of  Ball's  Bluff,  where  his  father's 
friend,  Colonel  Baker,  was  killed,  he  wrote  some 
boyish  verses  in  memory  of  the  soldiers  killed,  which 
were  published  in  a  Washington  paper.  All  of  these 
interests  of  Willie  endeared  him  especially  to  Mr. 
Lincoln,  and  his  death  was  a  blow  from  which  it  was 
very  difficult  for  him  to  recover. 

It  came  at  a  moment,  too — February  of  1862 — 
when  he  was  finding  it  hard  to  get  his  plans  for 
prosecuting  the  war  carried  out,  and  when  he  was 
receiving  from  all  sides  the  most  bitter  criticism.  It 
seemed  sometimes  as  if  everybody  in  Washington 
and  in  the  country  felt  that  he  knew  better  how  to 
run  the  war  than  Mr.  Lincoln  did.  Hundreds  of 
men — and  women — came  to  tell  him  what  he  ought 
to  do,  Congress  badgered  him  from  morning  till 
night,  great  commissions  visited  him.  He  heard 


192  Boy  Scouts9  Life  of  Lincoln 

them  all.  He  must  know  what  people  were  think 
ing,  and  perhaps  there  might  be  in  the  mob  some 
body  who  had  something  of  value  to  offer.  It  would 
not  do  to  let  a  helpful  idea  slip  for  lack  of  a  little 
patience.  What  he  feared  in  all  this  tumult  of  com 
plaint  and  advice  and  angry  excitement  was  that  good 
men  doing  their  best  might  be  forced  out  of  position, 
that  the  plans  which  he  was  working  out  painfully 
and  slowly  would  be  upset  and  all  the  little  headway 
lost. 

"Gentlemen,"  he  said  one  day  to  some  particularly 
excited  and  unreasonable  visitors,  "suppose  all  the 
property  you  are  worth  was  in  gold,  and  you  had  put 
it  in  the  hands  of  Blondin,  to  carry  across  the 
Niagara  River  on  a  rope.  Would  you  shake  the 
cable  or  keep  shouting  at  him,  'Blondin,  stand  up 
a  little  straighter;  Blondin,  stoop  a  little  more;  go  a 
little  faster;  lean  a  little  more  to  the  north;  lean  a 
little  more  to  the  south?'  No,  you  would  hold  your 
breath  as  well  as  your  tongue,  and  keep  your  hands 
off  until  he  was  safe  over.  The  government  is 
carrying  an  enormous  weight.  Untold  treasures  are 
in  their  hands;  they  are  doing  the  very  best  they  can. 
Don't  badger  them.  Keep  silence,  and  we  will  get 
you  safe  across." 

You  can  imagine  how  the  people  shook  the  cable 
when  they  heard  of  McClellan's  failure  to  take 
Richmond.  Mr.  Lincoln  had  not  only  to  bear  their 
outcries  but  the  anger  of  McClellan,  who  took  no 
blame  for  the  way  things  had  turned  out.  As  he 
fell  back  he  wired  to  Washington:  UA  few  more 
thousand  men  would  have  changed  this  battle  from  a 


Armed  with  a  Single  Purpose  193 

defeat  to  a  victory.  If  I  save  this  army  now  I  tell 
you  plainly  that  I  owe  no  thanks  to  you  or  to  any 
person  in  Washington.  You  have  done  your  best  to 
sacrifice  this  army." 

It  was  a  cruel  charge,  and  not  a  just  one ;  but  Mr. 
Lincoln  seems  to  have  sensed  what  McClellan  was 
suffering  over  the  cutting  to  pieces  of  his  splendid 
troops,  and  his  replies  to  the  cries  of  pain  and  anger 
that  came  from  the  general  were  kind  if  firm.  "I 
give  you  all  I  can  and  act  on  the  presumption  that 
you  will  do  the  best  you  can  with  what  you  have, 
while  you  continue  ungenerously,  I  think,  to  assume 
that  I  could  give  you  more  if  I  would.  I  feel  any 
misfortune  to  you  and  your  army  quite  as  keenly  as 
you  feel  it  yourself.  If  you  have  had  a  drawn  battle, 
or  a  repulse,  it  is  the  price  we  pay  for  the  enemy  not 
being  in  Washington.  We  protected  Washington 
and  the  enemy  concentrated  on  you.  Had  we 
stripped  Washington  he  would  have  been  upon  us 
before  the  troops  could  have  gotten  to  you." 

Nor  did  he  fail,  stricken  as  he  was  by  the  falling 
back  of  the  army,  to  thank  McClellan  for  the  "hero 
ism  and  skill"  which  he  showed  in  this  withdrawal. 
It  would  be  "forever  appreciated,"  he  told  him,  and 
he  added,  "If  you  can  hold  your  present  position  we 
shall  hive  the  enemy  yet." 

Mr.  Lincoln  went  down  to  camp  to  look  things 
over.  He  was  inclined  to  let  McClellan  try  again, 
but  the  country  and  his  advisers  would  have  none  of 
it.  They  were  done  with  McClellan.  Mr.  Lincoln 
himself  could  not  save  him,  and  in  August  he  called 
him  back  from  the  Peninsula  to  his  old  position 


194  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

across  the  Potomac  from  Washington.  McClellan 
was  heartbroken  over  the  order;  but,  as  it  turned 
out,  it  gave  him  another  great  chance. 

While  he  had  been  gone,  Mr.  Lincoln,  in  order  to 
be  sure  that  there  were  sufficient  forces  between 
Washington  and  Richmond,  had  formed  the  Army 
of  Virginia  and  called  from  the  West  General  John 
Pope  to  command  it.  When  McClellan  left  the 
James,  Lee  saw  his  chance  and  hurried  north  to  at 
tack  Pope.  In  the  second  battle  of  Bull  Run  at  the 
end  of  August,  Lee  thrashed  Pope  soundly  and  broke 
his  army  to  bits.  This  done,  he  raced  for  Maryland. 

In  the  panic  that  seized  Washington,  Mr.  Lincoln 
kept  his  head.  Pope  had  failed.  McClellan  was  on 
the  ground.  He  knew  he  understood  "licking  an 
army  into  shape"  and  so,  in  spite  of  what  anybody 
might  or  did  say,  he  ordered  him  to  take  full  charge, 
to  rally  the  distracted  troops,  overtake  Lee,  defeat 
him,  and  destroy  his  army. 

For  once  McClellan  acted  with  promptness.  He 
whipped  the  army  into  shape,  raced  after  Lee,  over 
took  him  at  Antietam  in  Maryland,  and  defeated 
him.  But  he  did  not  pursue  him.  Though  Lee's 
army  was  hardly  half  his  in  size  and  far  from  its 
base,  McClellan  let  him  get  away  while  he  stopped 
to  rest.  For  six  weeks  he  lay  there  "resting"  with 
Lee  scarcely  fifty  miles  away! 

Mr.  Lincoln  stood  it  as  long  as  he  could  and  then 
put  bluntly  to  McClellan  facts  about  his  generalship 
which  were  as  true  in  the  winter  of  1861  and  1862 — 
as  true  in  the  Peninsula  campaign  as  they  were  now. 
He  was  "overcautious" — overcautious  when  he 


Armed  with  a  Single  Purpose  195 

should  be  bold.  He  was  assuming  that  he  could  not 
do  what  Lee  was  constantly  doing;  that  he  could  not 
feed  an  army  where  Lee  and  his  generals  were  feed 
ing  one ;  could  not  move  by  wagon  though  Lee  was 
doing  it  over  twice  the  distance  with  half  the  wagons. 
"One  of  the  standard  maxims  of  war  is  to  operate 
upon  the  enemy's  communications  as  much  as  pos 
sible,"  he  told  McClellan,  "without  exposing  your 
own.  You  seem  to  act  as  if  this  applies  against  you 
but  cannot  apply  in  your  favor."  Did  McClellan 
admit  that  Lee  was  more  than  his  equal  on  a  march? 
Were  not  the  roads  as  good  for  him  as  for  Lee? 
Was  it  not  unmanly  to  say  that  our  troops  could  not 
march  as  well  as  Lee's?  Pursue  him — fight  him. 
"If  we  cannot  beat  him  where  he  is  now,  we  never 
can  he  again  being  within  the  entrenchments  of  Rich 
mond." 

If  anything  could  stiffen  a  man's  pride,  shame 
him  to  bestir  himself,  it  would  seem  that  such  a  let 
ter  would;  but  McClellan  did  not  budge.  His 
horses  had  sore  tongues,  were  fatigued,  he  wired. 
And  Mr.  Lincoln,  breaking  out  into  that  sarcasm 
of  which  he  was  a  master  but  which  he  so  controlled, 
wired  McClellan,  "Will  you  pardon  me  for  asking 
what  the  horses  of  your  army  have  done  since  An- 
tietam  that  fatigues  anything?" 

His  patience  was  reaching  the  breaking  point 
again.  He  must  have  a  general  who  would  move 
as  well  as  train,  pursue  as  well  as  fight,  and  on  No 
vember  7th,  nearly  two  months  after  the  battle  of 
Antietam,  he  removed  the  general.  McClellan  had 
had  his  last  chance  in  the  army,  and  lost.  But  as 


196  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

we  are  to  see  later,  he  was  not  through  with  Mr. 
Lincoln.  The  time  was  to  come,  when  he  was  to 
cross  swords  on  another  field — that  of  politics. 

If  the  general  had  been  overcautious,  as  Mr.  Lin 
coln  charged,  surely  he  had  himself  been  overpatient; 
but  we  would  not  be  able  to  say  this  of  him  if  he 
had  felt  sure  at  any  time  for  many  months  that  he 
had  in  all  his  armies  a  better  man  than  McClellan. 
He  was  by  no  means  sure  that  General  Ambrose 
Burnside,  whom  he  now  appointed  to  command  the 
Army  of  the  Potomac,  would  do  better.  But  he 
was  the  best  material  he  saw. 

It  was  an  unhappy  choice.  Burnside  failed  him, 
failed  him  in  December  at  the  battle  of  Fredericks- 
burg,  where  10,000  dead  and  wounded  Union  sol 
diers  were  left  on  the  field  and  2,000  were  missing. 
After  his  defeat  Burnside  showed  no  ability  to  pull 
his  troops  together  and  put  new  heart  into  them. 
He  must  have  another  general.  There  was  another 
man,  like  Burnside  a  corps  commander  under  Mc 
Clellan,  "Fightin*  Joe"  Hooker,  whom  he  had  been 
watching.  He  had  faults  which  Mr.  Lincoln  feared, 
but  he  had  qualities,  too.  He  decided  to  try  him, 
but  in  appointing  him  he  bravely  laid  all  his  doubts 
before  the  general.  Read  the  letter  and  see  how 
"square"  and  kind  it  is.  No  wonder  that  Hooker 
said,  "It  is  just  such  a  letter  as  a  father  might  write 
to  his  son." 

"GENERAL:  I  have  placed  you  at  the  head  of  the  Army  of 
the  Potomac.  Of  course  I  have  done  this  upon  what  appears  to 
me  to  be  sufficient  reasons,  and  yet  I  think  it  best  for  you  to 
know  that  there  are  some  things  in  regard  to  which  I  am  not 


Armed  with  a  Single  Purpose  197 

quite  satisfied  with  you.  I  believe  you  to  be  a  brave  and 
skillful  soldier,  which  of  course  I  like.  I  also  believe  you  do 
not  mix  politics  with  your  profession,  in  which  you  are  right. 
You  have  confidence  in  yourself,  which  is  a  valuable  if  not 
an  indispensable  quality.  You  are  ambitious,  which,  within 
reasonable  bounds,  does  good  rather  than  harm;  but  I  think 
that  during  General  Burnside's  command  of  the  army  you  have 
taken  counsel  of  your  ambition  and  thwarted  him  as  much 
as  you  could,  in  which  you  did  a  great  wrong  to  the  country, 
and  to  a  most  meritorious  and  honorable  brother  officer.  I 
have  heard,  in  such  a  way  as  to  believe  it,  of  your  recently 
saying  that  both  the  army  and  the  government  needed  a 
dictator.  Of  course  it  was  not  for  this,  but  in  spite  of  it, 
that  I  have  given  you  the  command.  Only  those  generals  who 
gain  successes  can  set  up  dictators.  What  I  now  ask  of  you 
is  military  success,  and  I  will  risk  the  dictatorship.  The  gov 
ernment  will  support  you  to  the  utmost  of  its  ability,  which 
is  neither  more  nor  less  than  it  has  done  and  will  do  for  all 
commanders.  I  much  fear  that  the  spirit  which  you  have 
aided  to  infuse  into  the  army,  of  criticizing  their  commander 
and  withholding  confidence  from  him,  will  now  turn  upon  you. 
I  shall  assist  you  as  far  as  I  can  to  put  it  down.  Neither  you 
nor  Napoleon,  if  he  were  alive  again,  could  get  any  good 
out  of  an  army  while  such  a  spirit  prevails  in  it;  and  now 
beware  of  rashness.  Beware  of  rashness,  but  with  energy  and 
sleepless  vigilance  go  forward  and  give  us  victories. 
"Yours  very  truly, 

"A.  LINCOLN." 

What  a  pity  that  Hooker  no  more  than  Burn- 
side  was  the  man;  for  he,  like  Burnside,  gave  the 
overburdened  President  not  only  another  defeat — 
that  of  Chancellorsville  in  May — not  only  a  defeat, 
but  he  let  Lee  slip  by  him,  cross  the  Potomac,  and 
make  for  Pennsylvania.  Hooker  took  after  him  in 
hot  haste,  but  resigned  on  the  way;  and  into  his 
place  went  a  third  corps  commander  from  the  Army 
of  the  Potomac,  General  George  Meade. 


198  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

Now  the  question  was:  What  could  Meade  do? 
Could  he  overtake  Lee  and  defeat  him  as  McClel- 
lan  had  done  at  Antietam?  And  if  so,  what  would 
he  then  do?  Pursue  him  or  let  him  go?  We  have 
learned  enough  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  determination  to 
find  a  fighting,  pursuing  leader,  to  be  sure  that  un 
less  Meade  did  both  he,  too,  would  be  replaced. 


CHAPTER  IX 

STEADY  IN  STORMS 

Beautiful  he  was  with  that  which  none  may  scorn — 
With  love  of  God  and  man  and  things  forlorn, 
And  freedom  mighty  as  the  soul  in  him. 
Large  at  the  helm  of  state  he  leans  and  looms 
With  the  grave,  kindly  look  of  those  who  die 
Doing  their  duty. 

MADISON  CAWEIN. 

MR.  LINCOLN'S  anxiety  was  acute  over 
what  General  Meade  would  do,  now  that 
he  had  taken  charge  of  the  Army  of  the 
Potomac,  in  the  very  middle  of  its  chase  into  Penn 
sylvania  after  Lee.  When  Meade  did  overtake  Lee 
at  Gettysburg  and  the  battle,  which  was  to  last  three 
days,  began  on  the  morning  of  July  i,  1863,  the 
President  sat  hour  after  hour  beside  the  telegraph 
instrument,  or,  in  his  eagerness,  rose  and  leaned 
over  the  cipherer  as  he  translated  the  dispatch.  By 
the  end  of  the  third  day  he  was  utterly  worn  out, 
and  the  Secretary  of  War,  Mr.  Stanton,  persuaded 
him  to  go  home  to  get  a  little  rest,  promising  that, 
if  any  definite  news  came  in  the  night,  to  let  him 
know. 

It  was  close  to  midnight  when  the  telegram  finally 
came  in,  announcing  the  great  victory.  Mr.  Stan- 
ton  seized  the  dispatch  and  ran  at  the  top  of  his 

199 


2OO  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

speed  to  the  White  House  and  up  the  stairs  to  Mr. 
Lincoln's  sleeping  room.  "Who's  there?"  called 
the  President.  When  he  heard  the  word  "Stanton" 
he  did  not  wait  for  dressing  gown  or  trousers,  but 
pulled  open  the  door,  uin  the  shortest  nightshirt  and 
longest  legs,"  Mr.  Stanton  used  to  say  in  telling  the 
story,  "I  ever  saw  on  a  human  being."  Stanton  was 
out  of  breath,  but  Lincoln  read  the  news  in  his  face, 
and,  seizing  him  by  the  shoulders,  danced  him  round 
and  round  the  room  until  both  of  them  were  ex 
hausted.  They  then  sat  down  on  a  trunk,  and  the 
President,  still  in  his  nightshirt,  read  over  and  over 
again  the  telegram  which  had  brought  him  unspeak 
able  relief  and  joy. 

When  General  Lee  retreated  from  Gettysburg,  it 
was  toward  the  Potomac.  A  heavy  rain  fell  as  he 
went,  making  the  river  almost  impassable.  It  gave 
Meade  a  wonderful  chance,  for,  hurt  and  exhausted 
as  his  army  was,  it  was  still  much  larger  than  Lee's 
— no  more  exhausted,  and  behind  it  was  a  friendly 
country.  Lee,  no  doubt,  expected  an  attack  on  the 
north  side  of  the  Potomac,  but  it  did  not  come. 
Even  when  his  army  was  divided  in  the  crossing, 
Meade  did  nothing. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  despair  over  tnis  inaction  was  al 
most  unbearable.  Once  over  the  river,  the  Union 
forces,  he  said  bitterly,  would  be  quite  as  likely  to 
capture  the  man  in  the  moon  as  any  part  of  Lee's 
army.  His  disappointment  was  embittered  by  some 
thing  very  hard  for  a  man  of  his  frank  and  open  na 
ture  to  bear,  and  that  was  suspicion  of  General 
Meade's  sympathy  with  his  policies.  It  seemed  to 


Steady  in  Storms  201 

him  as  if  Meade  and  his  generals  wanted  Lee  to 
cross  the  river,  wanted  him  to  get  away.  He  was 
within  Meade's  easy  grasp,  and  to  have  closed  upon 
him  would  have  ended  the  war.  The  opportunity 
was  gone.  Could  it  be  that  Meade  was  tainted 
with  that  sympathy  for  secession  that  had  crept  all 
through  the  North,  until  it  was  so  strong  that  in 
recent  months  it  had  come  boldly  into  the  open  and 
fearlessly  raised  its  ugly  head. 

Mr.  Lincoln  knew  well  enough  that  the  growth  of 
this  sympathy — "copperheadism,"  as  its  worst  form 
was  called — came  largely  from  dislike  by  many  peo 
ple  both  in  and  out  of  his  own  party  for  what  he 
had  been  doing  about  slavery. 

He  had  made  it  quite  clear  at  the  beginning  of 
the  war,  you  remember,  that  he  thought  he  had  no 
right  to  touch  slavery  in  the  States  where  the  Con 
stitution  had  left  it.  He  fought  to  save  the  Union. 
But  the  war  was  only  a  few  months  old  when  he 
realized  he  must  do  something.  The  anti-slavery 
people  wanted  him  to  set  the  slaves  free.  They 
seemed  to  think  that  if  he  would  he  could  abolish 
slavery  by  his  simple  word.  It  would  be  like  the 
Pope's  bull  against  the  comet,  he  told  them.  The 
South  could  laugh  at  such  an  order  as  long  as  they 
were  victorious;  tell  him  to  come  and  take  the 
slaves, 

He  couldn't  do  that;  but  there  was  one  thing  that 
he  was  willing  to  do  and  that  was  to  ask  Congress 
to  buy  the  slaves  of  any  State  that  would  emanci 
pate  them — buy  them  and  colonize  them  in  some 
unsettled  part  of  the  country  where  they  could  be- 


202  Boy  Scouts9  Life  of  Lincoln 

come  self-supporting  and  self-directing.  Through 
all  the  months  he  was  occupied  with  building  up  an 
army  and  trying  to  get  it  to  do  something,  he  was 
working  on  this  scheme  of  buying  and  freeing,  which 
he  called  "compensated  emancipation."  He  wanted 
the  Border  States — those  States  which  lay  midway 
between  North  and  South  and  which  both  sides  were 
trying  to  win  over — to  accept  this  offer.  They  were 
losing  their  slaves  by  the  hundreds.  If  they  would 
free  them,  the  United  States  would  pay  for  them. 
If  they  did  not  do  it,  they  would  lose  them  all  sooner 
or  later,  anyway,  through  the  wear  and  tear  of  war. 
But,  though  Mr.  Lincoln  begged  and  argued  with 
the  Border  States  to  accept  his  plan,  they  would  not 
touch  it.  Nor  did  the  North  have  any  enthusiasm 
about  it.  It  wanted  him  either  to  let  the  negroes 
entirely  alone  or  else  free  them  all  by  a  proclama 
tion — the  kind  of  proclamation  which  would  have 
done  no  good  because  it  could  not  have  been  en 
forced. 

He  went  very  slowly  in  the  matter,  determined  to 
do  nothing  that  the  Constitution,  which  was  the  book 
of  rules  he  was  following,  did  not  allow.  He  knew 
it  allowed  him  to  do  anything  with  property  which 
was  necessary  to  save  the  Union  from  being  de 
stroyed.  Slaves  were  property.  Anything  he  did 
with  them  to  save  the  Union  was  constitutional.  But 
even  supposing  he  could  and  did  free  all  or  certain 
slaves,  how  was  that  going  to  help  him  save  the 
Union?  There  were  certain  things  that  he  would 
win  at  once;  he  would  stop  the  back  fire  the  Aboli 
tionists  had  kindled  and  were  feeding — and  that 


Steady  in  Storms  203 

would  help.  He  would  take  laborers  from  the  fields 
and  workshops  of  the  South  and  would  gain  sol 
diers  (he  meant  to  arm  the  negro)  for  the  armies 
of  the  North  and  laborers  for  her  workshops — and 
that  would  help. 

He  would  probably  prevent  England  and  trance 
from  recognizing  the  Confederacy.  England  and 
France  did  not  understand  or  sympathize  with  Mr. 
Lincoln's  feeling  about  the  Union.  They  could  not 
see  why  the  South  did  not  have  a  right  to  set  up  for 
herself  if  she  wanted  to ;  but  Mr.  Lincoln  knew  that 
if  they  saw  that  the  success  of  the  North  meant  the 
destruction  of  slavery  they  would  probably  refuse  to 
recognize  the  Confederacy — and  that  would  help. 

But  if  he  might  gain,  he  also  stood  to  lose.  If 
he  put  out  the  back  fire  of  the  Abolitionist,  he  might 
kindle  that  of  the  Copperhead.  What  use  would  he 
have  for  negro  soldiers  and  negro  laborers  if  by  the 
making  of  them  he  lost  white  soldiers  and  white  la 
borers?  What  would  he  gain  by  silencing  England 
and  France  if  in  so  doing  he  turned  the  Border 
States  against  him? 

In  the  summer  of  1862,  when  things  were  going 
from  bad  to  worse  in  the  army,  he  made  up  his  mind 
that  he  must  try  new  tactics  or  he  would  lose  the 
war  and  that  the  strongest  new  weapon,  although 
a  dangerous  one,  would  be  some  form  of  emancipa 
tion — so  he  set  to  work.  He  was  getting  ready,  but 
he  would  not  be  hurried. 

Men  who  knew  that  Mr.  Lincoln  hated  slavery 
as  few  men  ever  had,  who  remembered  how  he  had 
fought  against  its  extension,  wondered.  Why  did 


2O4  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

he  hesitate?  "A  man  watches  his  pear  tree  day 
after  day,"  he  told  one  of  them,  ''impatient  for  the 
ripening  of  the  fruit.  Let  him  attempt  to  force  the 
process,  and  he  may  spoil  both  fruit  and  tree.  But 
let  him  patiently  wait,  and  the  ripe  pear  at  length 
falls  into  his  lap." 

When  Horace  Greeley,  the  powerful  editor  of 
the  New  York  Tribune,  tried  to  drive  him  by  prayers 
and  abuse,  he  silenced  him  by  a  letter  which  is  a 
model  for  those  of  us  who  really  want  people  to  un 
derstand  what  we  intend  to  do  and  why  we  intend 
to  do  it : 

"As  to  the  policy  I  'seem  to  be  pursuing,'  as  you  say,  I  have 
not  meant  to  leave  any  one  in  doubt. 

"I  would  save  the  Union. 

"I  would  save  it  the  shortest  way  under  the  Constitution. 

"The  sooner  the  national  authority  can  be  restored,  the 
nearer  the  Union  will  be  'the  Union  as  it  was.' 

"If  there  be  those  who  would  not  save  the  Union  unless  they 
could  at  the  same  time  save  slavery,  I  do  not  agree  with  them. 
If  there  be  those  who  would  not  save  the  Union  unless  they 
could  at  the  same  time  destroy  slavery,  I  do  not  agree  with 
them. 

"My  paramount  object  in  this  struggle  is  to  save  the  Union, 
and  is  not  either  to  save  or  destroy  slavery. 

"If  I  could  save  the  Union  without  freeing  any  slave,  I 
would  do  it;  and  if  I  could  save  it  by  freeing  all  the  slaves, 
I  would  do  it;  and  if  I  could  save  it  by  freeing  some  and 
leaving  others  alone,  I  would  also  do  that. 

"What  I  do  about  slavery  and  the  colored  race,  I  do 
because  I  believe  it  helps  to  save  the  Union;  and  what  I 
forbear,  I  forbear  because  I  do  not  believe  it  would  help  to 
save  the  Union. 

"I  shall  do  less  whenever  I  shall  believe  what  I  am  doing 
hurts  the  cause,  and  I  shall  do  more  whenever  I  shall  believe 
doing  more  will  help  the  cause. 


Steady  in  Storms  205 

"I  shall  try  to  correct  errors  when  shown  to  be  errors,  and 
I  shall  adopt  new  views  so  fast  as  they  shall  appear  to  be  true 
views." 

It  would  seem  as  if  nobody  could  have  had  any 
doubts  about  his  intentions  after  that. 

It  was  in  September  of  1862  that  the  time  finally 
came  when  he  believed  that  what  he  had  been  get 
ting  ready  to  do  about  slavery  would  help  the  Union. 
He  had  been  waiting  for  a  victory,  he  said,  fearing 
that  if  he  issued  the  proclamation  he  had  prepared 
while  the  armies  were  retreating  it  would  seem  like 
a  last  shriek.  But  he  had  promised  God  that  if  He 
would  give  him  a  victory,  he  would  issue  it.  The 
victory  came  at  Antietam,  as  you  know. 

The  night  before  that  battle,  Mr.  Lincoln  had  that 
same  dream  that  he  had  had  before  the  fall  of  Fort 
Sumter.  He  was  on  a  singular  and  indescribable 
vessel,  sailing  toward  a  dark  and  indefinite  shore. 
But  this  time,  when  he  reached  the  shore,  there  was 
light,  not  darkness,  as  after  Sumter,  for  McClellan 
had  driven  Lee  back.  Mr.  Lincoln  kept  his  word 
to  his  Maker. 

The  proclamation  he  sent  out  said  that  on  the 
first  day  of  January,  1863,  all  the  slaves  in  States 
in  rebellion  should  be  "then,  thenceforward  and  for 
ever  free."  It  also  said  that  the  United  States 
would  "recognize  and  maintain"  this  freedom.  Of 
course  this  did  not  destroy  slavery — it  simply  prom 
ised  to  free  certain  slaves  in  case  the  rebellion  went 
on,  and  it  also  gave  the  States  in  rebellion  the  chance 
to  save  their  slaves  if  they  would  lay  down  their 
arms, 


206  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

When  the  first  day  of  January  came,  Mr.  Lincoln 
signed  the  proclamation.  The  writing  is  slightly 
tremulous — "Not  because  of  any  uncertainty  on  my 
part,"  Mr.  Lincoln  told  some  who  noticed  it,  "but 
because  I  signed  just  after  three  hours'  handshaking 
at  the  New  Year's  reception." 

He  was  sure  he  had  done  right.  He  was  sure 
he  had  the  right  to  do  what  he  had  done,  but  he 
knew  he  was  in  for  a  stormy  time,  that  if  he  had 
spiked  some  guns  by  his  proclamation  he  had  brought 
other  guns  into  action.  He  looked  them  all  smil 
ingly  in  the  muzzle,  and  sized  up  the  situation  one 
day  to  his  Cabinet:  "We  are  like  a  lot  of  whalers 
who  have  been  long  on  the  chase.  We  have  at  last 
got  the  harpoon  in  the  monster  and  we  must  now 
look  out  how  we  steer  him  or,  with  one  flap  of  his 
tail,  he  will  send  us  all  into  eternity." 

It  certainly  seemed  at  times  as  if  they  might  as 
well  give  up  trying  to  steer  the  monster,  so  terribly 
did  he  plunge  and  leap.  The  most  serious  thing 
was  that  thousands  of  people  in  the  North  declared 
that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  changed  the  purpose  of  the 
war:  he  had  made  it  one  to  abolish  slavery.  That 
is,  they  refused  to  accept  Mr.  Lincoln's  idea  that 
what  he  did  about  slavery  was  in  order  to  save  the 
Union. 

The  result  of  the  Emancipation  Proclamation 
which  hurt  and  alarmed  Mr.  Lincoln  most  was  that 
it  turned  multitudes  of  the  common  soldiers  in  the 
army  against  him.  They  had  not  gone  into  the  army 
to  free  slaves,  they  said,  and  so  in  droves  they  ran 
away. 


Steady  in  Storms  207 

It  hurt  him  because  he  loved  them — felt  that  he 
understood  them  and  that  they  somehow  had  sensed 
this  love  and  understanding.  Washington  lay  so 
close  to  the  big  Eastern  armies  that  streams  of  sol 
diers  were  constantly  pouring  south  through  the 
town.  As  they  loitered  about  sight-seeing  or  pleas 
ure-seeking  in  their  hours  off  they  often  ran  across 
the  President  whose  habit  of  early  rising,  of  going 
out  himself  for  his  newspapers,  of  unexpectedly 
turning  up  at  the  Capitol,  the  arsenal,  or  on  the 
street  gave  them  a  chance  to  speak  to  him  often  to 
ask  a  favor. 

They  found  it  simple  to  see  him  at  the  White 
House,  too.  If  the  orderlies  stopped  them  with  the 
word  that  the  President  was  "busy,"  "not  receiv 
ing,"  "with  the  Cabinet,"  they  had  a  powerful  friend 
in  Tad  Lincoln.  Tad  had  a  great  love  for  all  sol 
diers  and  a  great  contempt  for  orders  and  rules. 
If  he  was  within  hearing  the  chances  are  that  he 
would  seize  the  disappointed  soldier  by  the  hand  and 
pushing  aside  guards  drag  him  straight  to  his  father 
with  a  demand  that  his  story  be  heard. 

The  frequent  visits  Mr.  Lincoln  made  to  the 
camps  endeared  him  to  the  men.  They  were  at  once 
at  home  with  him  as  he  walked  about,  chaffing  them 
over  their  tent  housekeeping — even  now  and  then 
swapping  stories  with  them  or  measuring  with  the 
unusually  tall  ones.  He  seemed  much  more  one  of 
them  than  their  officers.  One  thing  that  delighted 
them  and  of  which  they  often  talked  was  his  horse 
manship.  At  the  first  grand  review  of  McClelland 
army  there  had  been  among  the  officers  a  good  deal 


208  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

of  contemptuous  fun  over  the  idea  of  the  President's 
riding  beside  General  McClellan,  who  was  known 
for  his  splendid  horsemanship,  and  who  they  sus 
pected  to  be  not  unwilling  to  "show  off"  at  the  ex 
pense  of  the  President.  A  man  who  saw  the  review 
and  knew  how  the  officers  were  talking,  says  that 
when  the  day  came  a  spirited  black  horse  was  se 
lected  for  the  President  to  ride.  Mr.  Lincoln 
calmly  walked  up  to  the  animal,  and  the  instant  he 
seized  the  bridle  to  mount  it  was  evident  to  horse 
men  that  he  "knew  his  business."  He  had  the  ani 
mal  in  hand  at  once.  No  sooner  was  he  in  the  sad 
dle  than  his  mount  began  to  prance  and  whirl,  but 
the  President  sat  as  unconcerned  as  if  he  and  the 
horse  were  one.  The  test  of  endurance  soon  came. 
McClellan,  with  his  magnificent  staff,  approached  the 
President,  who  joined  them  and  they  dashed  to  a 
distant  part  of  the  field.  The  artillery  began  to 
thunder,  the  drums  beat,  and  the  bands  struck  up 
"Hail  to  the  Chief."  While  the  troops  cheered, 
Mr.  Lincoln  lifted  his  tall  hat  from  his  head  and, 
holding  the  bridle  rein  in  one  hand,  dashed  calmly 
and  easily  down  the  long  line.  He  could  ride,  and 
the  soldiers  were  proud  of  him. 

It  was  in  the  hospitals  in  and  around  Washington 
that  they  learned  to  know  him  best.  The  city  was 
so  close  to  the  Virginia  battlefields  that  all  through 
the  war  it  was  the  headquarters  of  the  wounded. 
After  the  battles  they  were  brought  back  by  thou 
sands  and  laid  in  long  rows  on  the  wharves  and  sta 
tions  along  the  Potomac  until  the  ambulances  could 
carry  them  to  the  hospitals.  They  came  in  such 


Steady  in  Storms  209 

numbers  after  Fredericksburg  and  Chancellorsville, 
and  later  after  Grant's  battles  in  the  Wilderness, 
that  public  buildings  and  private  houses  were  used. 
In  the  summer  Mr.  Lincoln  lived  at  the  Soldiers' 
Home  at  the  head  of  7th  Street,  and  all  along  his 
way,  as  he  went  back  and  forth  to  the  White  House, 
he  passed  between  barracks  and  tents  filled  with  the 
wounded.  With  the  soldiers  in  these  hospitals,  as 
well  as  those  scattered  about  the  town,  he  quickly 
established  friendly  relations.  He  knew  many  of 
the  patients  by  name  and  when  they  were  hopelessly 
wounded  would  send  them  flowers  and  special  mes 
sages. 

It  was  the  youth  of  them  that  wrung  his  heart. 
He  loved  boys.  You  have  seen  how,  in  those  days 
back  in  Springfield,  on  the  circuit,  while  he  was  car 
rying  on  his  great  fight  against  Douglas,  he  always 
had  a  word  for  any  boy  that  crossed  his  path. 
When  he  began  to  see  the  army  he  was  gathering, 
it  was  the  youth  of  it  that  amazed  him,  as  indeed  it 
must  amaze  all  who  see  armies  in  the  making.  He 
knew  that  hundreds  of  these  soldiers  were  lads  un 
der  eighteen  who  had  boldly  lied,  and  frequently 
had  their  lies  ignored,  in  order  to  try  out  the  great 
adventure;  and  he  realized,  particularly  after  Bull 
Run,  how  unfitted  these  half-grown  lads  were  to 
stand  for  long  the  intolerable  hardships  of  war,  to 
rally  quickly  from  wounds  and  exposure. 

No  day  in  all  the  war  was  harder  for  him  than 
that  day  after  the  defeat  at  Bull  Run,  when,  through 
a  dripping  rain,  men  and  boys  trailed  across  the 
Long  Bridge  over  the  Potomac  in  disorderedi 


2io  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

ashamed,  horrified  squads.  Their  faces  were  coated 
with  the  red  dust  of  Maryland,  and  the  smoke  and 
dirt  of  powder.  Their  clothes  were  thick  with  mud. 
Starved  for  food  and  drink,  they  took  from  the 
hands  of  the  pitying,  weeping  Unionist  women  of 
Washington  the  bread  and  coffee  which  they  of 
fered  them  from  the  doors  of  their  houses  or  from 
the  rough  counters  set  up  along  the  street.  And, 
fed,  they  dropped  into  doorways,  into  open  spaces, 
anywhere  there  was  a  vacant  spot,  and  slept  and 
slept — boys  of  fifteen,  sixteen,  seventeen,  eighteen. 

No  trial,  among  all  the  many  that  overwhelmed 
Mr.  Lincoln  during  the  war,  quite  equaled  that  of 
allowing  a  soldier  to  be  shot.  It  was  the  one  thing 
about  which  he  was  ever  heard  to  say,  "I  can't  bear 
it."  When  the  news  of  terrible  defeats,  like  those 
of  Fredericksburg  and  Chancellorsville  came,  he 
might  walk  the  floor  and  groan,  and  groan.  Men 
saw  his  eyes  sink  deeper  and  deeper,  his  color  change 
to  a  gray  like  that  of  death,  his  shoulders  become 
more  and  more  bent;  but  never  did  he  say,  "I  can't 
bear  it."  It  was  only  on  Friday,  toward  the 
sunset  hour,  that  he  would  walk  the  floor  of  the 
White  House,  saying,  "They  are  shooting  a  boy  out 
at  such  a  place  to-day.  I  can't  bear  it!  I  can't 
bear  it!" 

Mr.  Lincoln  would  never  allow  the  death  sen 
tence  to  be  carried  out  if  he  could  find  a  shadow  of 
excuse  to  forbid  it.  The  Secretary  of  War  and 
many  of  the  generals  in  the  army  constantly  bom 
barded  him  with  indignant  protests  against  his  clem 
ency;  but  if  he  had  found  a  reason  that  satisfied  him, 


Steady  in  Storms  21 1 

or  even  half  satisfied  him,  they  could  not  shake  his 
determination.  Fathers  and  mothers  and  friends 
would  come  to  beg  him  to  save  a  boy.  Driven 
night  and  day  as  he  was  by  the  demands  made  upon 
him,  he  would  personally  examine  the  papers,  go 
himself  to  the  telegraph  office,  stand  over  the  instru 
ment  until  the  order  had  been  sent  to  delay  the  sen 
tence,  not  rest  until  he  had  an  answer  back  that  the 
telegram  had  been  received  and  the  order  would  be 
carried  out.  A  boy  might  have  run  away  out  of 
sheer  fright.  Mr.  Lincoln  had  a  drawer  full  of 
what  he  called  "leg  cases,"  and  he  would  say  some 
times  in  explanation  of  his  sympathy  for  them  that 
if  God  had  given  a  man  a  pair  of  cowardly  legs 
what  could  you  expect  but  that  he  would  run  away ! 

One  of  the  pardons  of  sentenced  soldiers  which 
touched  the  country  most  deeply  and  which  has  gone 
into  the  wonderful  drama  of  John  Drinkwater, 
"Abraham  Lincoln,"  was  of  a  soldier  that  had  slept 
on  his  post.  After  marching  all  day  he  had  taken 
a  sick  comrade's  place  for  guard  duty.  It  was  too 
much.  He  had  fallen  asleep,  been  discovered,  and 
sentenced.  Mr.  Lincoln  visited  the  army  soon  after 
this  and,  asking  if  there  were  any  sentences,  was 
told,  yes,  there  was  a  boy  to  be  shot  on  such  a  day. 

The  President  went  to  see  him,  talked  with  him, 
asked  him  to  tell  him  about  it.  He  could  not  help 
it,  the  condemned  lad  said,  he  was  too  tired,  he 
didn't  know  he  could  be  too  tired  to  keep  awake. 
There  was  no  doubting  the  truth  of  his  explana 
tion,  and  the  President,  putting  his  arm  about  him, 
said,  "My  boy,  you  are  not  going  to  be  shot.  I  am 


212  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

going  to  send  you  back  to  the  regiment.  But  how 
are  you  going  to  pay  my  bill?" 

Dazed  by  the  great  news,  he  could  scarcely  think. 
He  had  a  little  money — his  parents  would  mortgage 
the  farm — perhaps  some  of  his  friends  would  help 
— they  might  give  five  or  six  hundred  dollars. 

"It  is  not  money  I  want,"  Mr.  Lincoln  told  him. 
"My  bill  is  a  very  large  one,  and  there  is  nobody 
in  the  world  but  you  can  pay  it.  If  you  will  prom 
ise  from  now  on  to  shirk  no  duty  so  that  when  you 
come  to  die  you  can  say,  'I  have  kept  my  promise/ 
then  your  debt  will  be  paid." 

The  boy  gave  his  word.  A  few  months  later  he 
was  shot  in  battle  and  while  dying  asked  that  a  mes 
sage  be  carried  to  the  President.  "Tell  him,"  he 
said,  "that  I  have  tried  to  be  a  good  soldier  and 
that  I  died  thinking  of  his  kind  face." 

You  can  understand,  then,  how  bitter  it  was  for 
Mr.  Lincoln  to  know  that  the  common  soldiers  whom 
he  so  loved  were  deserting  because  of  the  Eman 
cipation  Proclamation,  and  that  they  would  be  shot 
if  caught;  but  he  had  no  bitterness  against  them.  It 
was  against  those  back  home  whom  he  believed  to 
be  influencing  them  that  his  anger  was  directed. 
"Must  I  shoot  a  simple-minded  boy  who  deserts," 
he  said,  "while  I  must  not  touch  a  hair  of  a  wily 
agitator  who  induced  him  to  desert?  I  think  that 
to  silence  the  agitator  and  save  the  boy  is  not  only 
constitutional,  but  withal  a  great  mercy." 

If  the  escape  of  Lee  after  Gettysburg  and  the  re 
volt  at  home  and  in  the  army  were  giving  Mr.  Lin 
coln  anxiety  and  suffering,  he  had  at  last  a  victory 


Steady  in  Storms  213 

in  the  West  which  took  much  of  the  sting  from  his 
troubles — a  great,  unqualified  military  success,  a  suc 
cess  not  tainted  like  Antietam  and  Gettysburg  had 
been  by  a  failure  to  seize  the  advantage  gained,  but 
a  success  followed  up.  He  believed,  too,  he  had  at 
last  the  thing  he  had  sought  from  the  start,  a  man 
that  would  fight — fight  as  General  Lee  had  been 
fighting — General  Ulysses  S.  Grant,  who,  on  July  4, 
1863,  had  been  able  to  telegraph  him  that  Vicks- 
burg,  the  key  to  the  Mississippi,  which  he  had  been 
besieging  for  many  weeks,  had  fallen,  its  defenders 
had  marched  out,  the  Union  flag  was  flying;  at  last 
the  "Father  of  Waters  went  unvexed  to  the  sea." 

The  fall  of  Vicksburg,  coming  as  it  did  on  the  very 
day  of  the  battle  of  Gettysburg  and  before  it  was 
known  that  so  much  of  the  fruits  of  Gettysburg  was 
to  be  lost,  put  heart  into  the  North.  It  helped,  too, 
to  put  an  end  to  talk  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic 
of  recognizing  the  Confederacy — talk  which  per 
sisted  after  the  Emancipation  Proclamation  be 
cause,  as  the  friends  of  the  Confederacy  there  said, 
the  North  never  could  be  victorious.  But,  above 
all,  it  gave  Mr.  Lincoln  the  man  he  sought  to  save 
the  Union. 

Grant  was  a  West  Pointer.  Nobody  knew  much 
of  him  when  the  war  broke  out  in  spite  of  his  hav 
ing  won  a  captaincy  in  the  Mexican  War,  for  seven 
years  before  the  fall  of  Sumter  he  had  left  the  army 
and  gone  into  business.  The  first  shot  in  1861 
brought  him  quickly  back.  He  took  the  appoint 
ment  given  him  without  haggling  or  complaining. 
He  did  the  thing  they  asked  of  him  and  so  well  that 


214  Boy  Scouts9  Life  of  Lincoln 

before  the  end  of  1861  he  was  in  command  of  a 
big  military  division,  that  including  the  southern  part 
of  Illinois  and  the  western  part  of  Kentucky.  It 
was  in  clearing  the  Confederates  out  of  this  terri 
tory  that  in  February,  1862,  he  attacked  Fort  Don- 
elson  on  the  Cumberland  River  and  sent  a  famous 
message  to  the  commander :  "No  terms  other  than 
unconditional  and  immediate  surrender  can  be  ac 
cepted."  "Unconditional  Surrender"  (U.  S.) 
Grant  now  became  his  name,  and  major  general  of 
volunteers  his  rank.  Mr.  Lincoln,  watching  his 
work  in  dispatches  and  on  maps,  noted  that  it  was 
steady,  patient,  untiring,  and  when  in  the  summer 
of  1862,  after  McClellan's  failure  to  reach  Rich 
mond,  he  felt  the  need  of  a  fresh  military  mind  to 
help  him  in  Washington  and  decided  to  call  General 
Halleck,  Grant's  commander  in  chief,  East,  it  was 
Grant  that  he  put  at  the  head  of  the  army  in  west 
Tennessee. 

There  was  much  opposition  to  Grant's  promotion 
from  men  within  and  without  the  army.  They  came 
to  Mr.  Lincoln  with  old  slanders.  Mr.  Lincoln  had 
one  answer,  "I  cannot  spare  this  man.  He  fights." 

Grant  finally,  in  the  spring  of  1863,  came  in  his 
fighting  to  the  siege  of  Vicksburg.  He  made  some 
moves  that  Mr.  Lincoln  thought  unwise,  but  he  kept 
his  hands  off.  And  now  this  man  that  fought  had 
given  him  what  was  so  far  in  the  war  the  success  of 
successes.  After  his  victory  Grant  did  not  wait  an 
hour  to  follow  up  his  advantage.  He  pursued, 
cleaning  up  as  he  went,  and  was  ready  at  the  right 
moment  to  help  in  the  next  great  Western  military 


Steady  in  Storms  215 

movement — opening  eastern  Tennessee.  There 
were  many  loyal  people  in  eastern  Tennessee  and 
they  had  suffered  much  through  the  war.  Mr.  Lin 
coln  had  set  his  heart  on  relieving  them,  but  his 
armies  there  had  never  succeeded,  and  largely  for 
the  reason  McClellan  did  not  succeed :  the  generals 
had  the  "slows."  Things  were  in  a  very  bad  way 
by  September  of  this  year,  1863,  the  Union  armies 
being  shut  up  in  Chattanooga  and  unable  even  to 
get  proper  food.  Mr.  Lincoln  promptly  turned  the 
problem  of  relieving  them  over  to  Grant,  who  lost 
no  time  either  in  getting  in  food  or  in  bringing  up 
troops.  In  November  his  armies  attacked  the  Con 
federates  entrenched  on  the  heights  around  the  town 
and  drove  them  from  their  vantage  points. 

Nothing  now  was  too  much  to  do  for  this  general 
who,  while  his  enemies  abused  him,  plotting  his 
ruin,  kept  silent  and  fought.  Congress  revived  for 
him  an  old  military  grade  that  had  lapsed,  that  of 
lieutenant  general,  a  rank  that  had  never  been  given 
to  any  one  except  George  Washington;  and  in 
March,  1864,  Lieutenant  General  Grant  was  put  in 
command  of  all  the  armies  of  the  United  States. 

Only  two  large  Confederate  forces  now  remained 
in  the  field,  that  which  under  Grant's  generalship 
had  been  driven  from  around  Chattanooga  but  which 
still  threatened  the  Union  forces  in  that  part  of  the 
country  and  General  Lee's  army  which  General 
Meade  had  been  watching  but  never  injuring  in  all 
the  months  since  Gettysburg.  Grant's  job  was  to 
see  that  these  two  forces  were  beaten  and  scattered. 
The  first  he  turned  over  to  General  W.  T.  Sherman, 


2i6  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

who  had  been  under  him  through  all  his  hardest  cam 
paigns,  and  the  second  he  took  hold  of  himself. 

What  a  relief  to  Mr.  Lincoln,  after  this  long 
three  years'  hunt  for  a  general,  to  turn  over  the  com- 
mandership  to  a  man  who  always  attended  strictly 
to  his  business  of  fighting,  never  mixing  politics  with 
it,  who  attacked  whenever  he  could  get  the  chance, 
who  used  the  forces  he  had,  whose  one  idea  was 
Mr.  Lincoln's  idea — to  put  down  the  rebellion. 

Mr.  Lincoln  put  it  up  to  Grant  to  end  the  war. 
He  did  not  ask  his  plans — didn't  want  to  know  them ; 
he  told  the  general,  "You  are  vigilant  and  self-re 
liant.  I  am  pleased  with  this  and  wish  not  to  ob 
trude  any  constraints  or  restraints  upon  you.  If 
there  is  anything  that  is  within  my  power  to  give, 
do  not  fail  to  let  me  know  it.  And  now,  with  a 
brave  army  and  a  just  cause,  may  God  sustain  you." 

The  relief  came  none  too  soon,  for  he  had  another 
task  on  hand  and  that  was  fighting  the  tremendous 
civilian  army  that  had  arisen  in  the  North  to  prevent 
his  reelection.  It  was  an  army  made  up  not  only 
of  Democrats  who  hated  him  because  he  was  not  of 
their  party;  of  Copperheads  who  wanted  to  see  the 
South  succeed;  of  Abolitionists  who  held  him  re 
sponsible  for  not  destroying  slavery  at  once,  root 
and  branch,  though  there  was  no  human,  not  to  say 
legal,  way  of  doing  that;  of  pacifists  who  so  hated 
the  horrors  of  war  that  they  were  willing  to  sacrifice 
the  Union  and  the  chance  of  giving  freedom  to  hun 
dreds  of  thousands  of  human  beings — but  of  thou 
sands  of  his  own  party — men  who  thought  he  should 
have  issued  the  Emancipation  Proclamation  earlier 


Steady  in  Storms  217 

and  men  who  thought  he  should  not  have  issued  it 
at  all;  men  who  believed  in  the  Emancipation  Proc 
lamation  but  would  not  consent  to  an  amendment  to 
the  Constitution  abolishing  slavery  forever  from 
the  Union;  men  who  thought  he  should  have  dis 
missed  General  McClellan  earlier  or  not  at  all;  who 
didn't  like  this  or  that  member  of  the  Cabinet. 
Every  move  he  had  made  or  refused  to  make  had 
turned  somebody  against  him,  and  these  people  were 
now  as  determined  to  defeat  him  for  a  second  term 
as  the  Democrats  and  secessionists  themselves. 

All  through  the  winter  and  spring  of  1864  they 
looked  for  somebody  that  they  could  put  in  his  place. 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  exasperatingly  indifferent  to  their 
efforts.  He  showed  no  spite  or  ill  feeling.  If  the. 
people  wanted  somebody  else  it  was  their  right  to 
have  him.  He  had  no  business  to  interfere. 

But  the  people  did  not  want  somebody  else — that 
was  clear.  General  Fremont  was  a  candidate,  and 
it  was  said  that  "thousands"  would  flock  to  nomi 
nate  him — four  hundred  came.  Mr.  Chase,  the 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  was  a  candidate,  but  his 
own  State  of  Ohio  asked  for  Mr.  Lincoln.  When 
the  convention  met  in  June  the  politicians  all  agreed 
the  people  would  not  take  anybody  in  his  place. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  no  doubt  right  about  the  popu 
lar  demand  for  him:  "They  probably  knew  it  was 
never  wise  to  swap  horses  in  crossing  a  stream  and 
had  concluded  that  he  was  not  so  poor  a  horse  but 
that  they  might  make  a  botch  of  it  if  they  tried  to 
swap." 

But  no  horse  ever  had  more  difficulty  in  fording 


218  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

a  stream  to  keep  his  feet  and  the  track  than  Mr. 
Lincoln  now  had.  Everybody  that  had  opposed  him 
combined  to  fret,  nag,  and  bewilder  him.  They 
came  at  him  from  all  sides,  trying  to  break  his  will 
and  confuse  his  judgment.  They  did  not  by  any 
means  agree  as  to  what  should  be  done,  but  they 
did  agree  to  oppose  whatever  Mr.  Lincoln  did. 

The  severest  test  of  a  man's  courage  and  fidelity 
to  purpose  comes  when  not  only  his  enemies  but  his 
friends  turn  on  him.  If  he  sticks  then  to  the  thing 
he  has  undertaken,  he  is  a  man.  Mr.  Lincoln  did 
stick.  He  handled  the  different  forces  that  threat 
ened  or  hectored  him  bravely,  sensibly,  and  for  the 
most  part  good-naturedly.  It  was  only  now  and 
then  that  he  burst  out  in  contempt  or  indignation  at 
some  particularly  outrageous  performance  which  he 
thought  was  hurting  the  cause. 

There  was  the  draft.  Grant  needed  men — many 
of  them.  He  believed  that  a  great,  fresh  outpour 
ing  of  troops  might  quickly  end  the  war.  Friend 
and  foe  warned  Mr.  Lincoln  that  he  could  never 
be  elected  if  he  made  another  draft.  "But  what 
good  is  it  to  me  to  be  elected  if  I  have  no  country? 
We  need  the  men  to  save  the  country/'  and  he  asked 
for  500,000. 

Then  there  were  the  peace-at-any-price  people. 
They  accused  him  of  so  hating  the  South  that  he  was 
willing  to  bleed  the  North  to  crush  her,  yet  no  man 
in  the  North  was  more  just  and  tolerant  to  the  South 
than  he  and  no  man  suffered  more  over  the  loss 
and  suffering  of  war.  The  war  had  been  undertaken 


Steady  in  Storms  219 

to  save  something  more  precious  than  life  and  it 
would  continue  until  that  end  was  secure. 

Even  so  powerful  an  editor  as  Horace  Greeley 
joined  this  faction  that  accused  Mr.  Lincoln  of  not 
doing  his  part  to  end  the  suffering.  There  were 
agents  from  Jefferson  Davis  now  in  Canada,  Greeley 
claimed,  prepared  to  make  peace  and  Mr.  Lincoln 
was  so  obstinate  and  bloodthirsty  he  would  not  send 
any  one  to  treat  with  them.  Mr.  Lincoln  finally 
turned  the  tables  neatly  on  his  critic.  He  sent  him 
as  an  agent  to  see  the  gentlemen,  telling  him  that 
any  proposition  they  had  which  recognized  the  Union 
and  abolished  slavery  would  be  considered,  but  as 
Mr.  Lincoln  believed,  they  had  neither  powers  nor 
proposition;  they  were  mischief-makers.  But  when 
Mr.  Greeley  failed  "to  crack  the  nut,"  found  Mr. 
Lincoln  was  right  and  he  wrong,  it  only  added  an 
other  grievance  against  the  President ! 

There  were  the  selfish — those  who  in  these  dread 
ful  times  thought  only  of  advancement,  office, 
claims,  favors.  His  patience  was  often  badly 
strained  by  their  insistence.  "Go  away,  my  man. 
Go  away,"  he  said  one  day  to  a  soldier  who  wanted 
him  to  interfere.  "I  might  as  well  try  to  bail  out 
the  Potomac  with  a  teaspoon  as  to  attend  to  all  the 
details  of  the  army." 

To  another  man  who  was  pestering  him  to  give 
personal  attention  to  some  small  claim,  he  told  a 
story  of  a  steamboat  captain  he  had  known  on  an 
Illinois  river.  This  captain  always  took  the  wheel 
when  the  steamer  reached  the  rapids.  One  day 


22O  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

when  the  boat  was  plunging  and  wallowing  and  it 
was  taking  all  his  skill  to  keep  her  in  the  narrow 
channel,  a  boy  pulled  his  coat-tails.  "Say,  Mister 
Captain/'  he  said,  "I  wish  you  would  stop  your  boat 
a  minute,  I've  lost  my  apple  overboard !" 

He  was  the  captain  of  a  ship  tossed  and  beaten 
by  winds  and  waves  and  hundreds  of  passengers  were 
calling  to  him  to  stop  while  they  picked  up  their  lost 
apples  I 

These  selfish  and  inconsiderate  people  were  but 
a  small  annoyance  beside  those  who,  agreeing  with 
him  that  the  Union  should  be  saved,  disagreed  so 
violently  with  him  about  the  way  he  took  to  save  it 
that  they  were  almost  willing  to  let  it  be  destroyed 
rather  than  let  him  succeed  in  his  plans. 

There  had  come  to  be  by  this  time  several  differ 
ent  classes  of  Unionists.  Mr.  Lincoln  once  made 
a  table  of  them.  There  were  the  people  who  were 
for  the  Union: 

With,  but  not  without,  slavery. 

Without,  but  not  with,  slavery. 

With  or  without,  but  preferred  it  with. 

With  or  without,  but  preferred  it  without. 

There  was  a  second  division  of  those  who  believed 
in  Union  without  slavery  who  wanted : 

1,  Gradual  but  not  immediate  emancipation. 

2,  Immediate  but  not  gradual  emancipation. 
Those  in  the  above  group  who  leaned  to  slavery 

were  more  bitter  than  ever  just  now  because  they 
saw  that  by  saving  the  Union  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  way 
they  were  going  to  get  finally  something  much  more 
sweeping  than  the  Emancipation  Proclamation — 


Steady  in  Storms  221 

and  that  was  an  amendment  to  the  Constitution, 
abolishing  slavery  for  good  and  all  in  the  United 
States.  That  was  in  the  platform  on  which  Mr. 
Lincoln  was  running.  You  should  read  this  plank 
carefully  in  order  to  understand  how  much  more 
his  election  now  would  mean  to  human  freedom  than 
it  would*  have  meant  if  he  had  been  satisfied  to  stop 
with  the  Emancipation  Proclamation. 

"Resolved,  That  as  slavery  was  the  cause,  and  now  con 
stitutes  the  strength,  of  this  rebellion,  and  as  it  must  be, 
always  and  everywhere,  hostile  to  the  principles  of  republican 
government,  justice  and  the  national  safety  demand  its  utter 
and  complete  extirpation  from  the  soil  of  the  republic;  and 
that  while  we  uphold  and  maintain  the  acts  and  proclamation 
by  which  the  government,  in  its  own  defense,  has  aimed  a  death 
blow  at  this  gigantic  evil,  we  are  in  favor,  furthermore,  of  such 
an  amendment  to  the  Constitution,  to  be  made  by  the  people  in 
conformity  with  its  provisions,  as  shall  terminate  and  forever 
prohibit  the  existence  of  slavery  within  the  limits  of  the  juris 
diction  of  the  United  States. 

These  divisions  among  the  Republican  Unionists, 
with  the  suspicion  and  hate  and  crime  they  caused, 
gave  great  joy  naturally  to  the  Democrats  who  had 
nominated  General  McClellan.  He  was  a  good 
Union  man  and  believed  in  carrying  on  the  war,  but 
as  he  was  opposed  to  Mr.  Lincoln  everybody  else 
opposed  flocked  about  him,  among  them  the  peace 
people.  Much  to  his  disgust,  even  the  secessionists 
claimed  him  as  their  friend  and  exhorted  their  ar 
mies  to  win  a  victory  in  order  to  help  his  election. 

By  August  there  seemed  little  chance  of  Mr.  Lin 
coln  winning.  His  best  and  most  hopeful  friends 


222  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

assured  him  it  was  impossible.  He  thought  so  him 
self.  Now,  Mr.  Lincoln  wanted  to  be  reflected. 
He  wanted  to  finish  the  job,  he  said.  As  he  saw  it, 
the  only  way  that  the  Union  could  be  saved  now  was 
his  way.  If  the  people  did  not  take  him  they  would 
get  a  divided  country — one-half  of  it  built  on  slav 
ery.  "Very  well,"  he  said  grimly,  one  day  when  an 
alarmed  supporter  was  telling  him  how  black  the 
outlook  was,  "very  well.  It's  the  people's  business, 
the  election  is  in  their  hands.  If  they  turn  their 
backs  to  the  fire  and  get  scorched  in  the  rear,  they'll 
find  they  have  got  to  sit  on  the  blister." 

But  whatever  happened,  he  did  not  propose  to 
turn  his  back  to  the  fire. 

You  have  seen  that  often  in  Mr.  Lincoln's  effort 
to  put  down  the  rebellion  he  was  saved  from  disaster 
in  the  very  nick  of  time — at  Antietam,  at  Gettysburg, 
at  Chattanooga.  Now  at  the  moment  when  he  was 
admitting  probable  defeat,  a  victory  came  to  aid 
him — a  brilliant  and  important  one. 

When  General  Grant  took  charge  of  all  the  Union 
armies  he  had  put  General  Sherman  at  the  head  of 
the  Western  forces.  His  task  was  to  drive  out  the 
Confederates  still  massed  south  and  east  of  Chat 
tanooga.  Sherman  had  pushed  the  enemy  with  tre 
mendous  energy,  beating  him  at  every  point  until  at 
the  moment  when  Northern  discouragement  was  at 
its  height,  he  wired  Mr.  Lincoln: 

"Atlanta  is  ours  and  fairly  won." 

Sherman's  message  was  like  a  summer  thunder 
shower,  clearing  the  air  of  suffocation  and  leaving 
brisk  breezes  and  fresh  life  behind.  And  with  it 


Steady  in  Storms  223 

went  other  victories  of  vast  importance :  one  was  the 
capture  of  the  last  port  through  which  the  Confed 
erates  were  able  to  trade,  that  of  Mobile  Bay  on 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  Through  it  they  had  been 
sending  out  cotton,  receiving  back  food  and  arms. 
Now  came  news  from  Admiral  Farragut  that  this 
last  big  leak  was  stopped.  And  then  came  swiftly  a 
series  of  battles  fought  by  General  Phil  Sheridan 
which  closed  the  Shenandoah  Valley,  through  which, 
from  the  beginning  of  the  war,  General  Lee  had  been 
able  to  send  his  daring  forces  on  raids  threatening 
Washington  and  Pennsylvania. 

Nothing  in  all  the  war  had  worried  Mr.  Lincoln 
more  than  these  dashes  at  Washington.  He  could 
not  endure  the  idea  of  its  capture  and  any  danger 
of  it — and  there  had  been  danger  more  than  once 
— threw  him,  cool-headed  as  he  was,  almost  into 
panic.  In  this  very  summer,  when  things  were  so 
dark  and  everybody  turning  against  him,  one  of  these 
raids  had  taken  place,  the  Confederates  coming  so 
near  to  the  town  that  his  summer  home  was  con 
sidered  unsafe. 

Grant  had  at  once  put  General  Sheridan  on  the 
job  of  clearing  out  the  valley  and  now  it  was  done 
— done  with  a  fire  and  dash  that  recalled  "Stone 
wall  Jackson,"  the  famous  Confederate  general 
killed  at  Chancellorsville  who,  in  the  early  days  of 
the  war,  had  so  tormented  the  Union  Army  from 
this  very  valley  which  Sheridan  now  made  safe. 

These  victories  piling  up  took  many  arguments 
from  the  mouths  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  enemies.  He  was 
finishing  the  war.  It  might  take  time — more  hard 


224  Boy  Scouts9  Life  of  Lincoln 

fighting,  more  suffering;  but  victory  now  seemed 
sure,  victory  with  the  Union,  a  Union  from  which 
human  slavery,  which  had  so  nearly  wrecked  it, 
would  be  forever  wiped. 

People  believed  it,  and  a  little  later  when  the  elec 
tion  came  they  proved  their  faith,  for  it  was  Abra 
ham  Lincoln,  not  General  McClellan,  to  whom  the 
majority  gave  their  votes. 


CHAPTER  X 

VICTORY  1 

He  held  his  place — 

Held  the  long  purpose  like  a  growing  tree — 
Held  on  through  blame  and  faltered  not  at  praise, 
And  when  he  fell,  in  whirlwind,  he  went  down 
As  when  a  kingly  cedar,  green  with  boughs, 
Goes  down  with  a  great  shout  upon  the  hills, 
And  leaves  a  lonesome  place  against  the  sky. 

EDWIN  MARKHAM. 

IF  you  will  turn  back  to  those  days  in  1861  when 
Mr.  Lincoln  made  his  call  for  men  to  put  down 
the  rebellion,  you  will  find  him  saying  that  the 
question  to  be  settled  by  the  war  was  whether  or  no 
a  government  by  the  people  could  be  broken  apart 
by  a  group  of  these  same  people  when  they  were 
dissatisfied  with  the  results  of  an  election.  If  that 
could  happen,  then  no  free  government  could  long 
endure  on  the  earth.  It  was  not  only  the  fate  of 
the  United  States  but  of  men  everywhere  that  was 
at  stake. 

As  the  war  went  on  he  kept  this  question  con 
stantly  in  the  people's  mind.  Can  you  guard  this 
Union  you  have  made?  Can  you  save  it  from  this 
attack  from  the  inside?  Do  you  care  enough  for 
it  to  hold  out  whatever  it  may  cost  you?  He  would 
not  let  them  forget  what  they  were  fighting  for.  He 

225 


226  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

continually  thrust  forward  the  idea  in  what  he  wrote 
or  said.  It  is  the  theme  of  one  of  the  greatest  of 
his  speeches,  made  in  November  of  1863,  when  the 
Gettysburg  battlefield  was  dedicated  as  a  national 
cemetery.  Every  Scout  should  know  this  Gettys 
burg  speech  by  heart. 

"Fourscore  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers  brought  forth 
on  this  continent,  a  new  nation,  conceived  in  liberty,  and 
dedicated  to  the  proposition  that  all  men  are  created  equal. 

"Now  we  are  engaged  in  a  great  civil  war,  testing  whether 
that  nation,  or  any  nation  so  conceived  and  so  dedicated,  can 
long  endure.  We  are  met  on  a  great  battlefield  of  that  war. 
We  have  come  to  dedicate  a  portion  of  that  field,  as  a  final 
resting  place  for  those  who  here  gave  their  lives  that  that 
nation  might  live.  It  is  altogether  fitting  and  proper  that  we 
should  do  this. 

"But,  in  a  larger  sense  we  cannot  dedicate — we  cannot 
consecrate — we  cannot  hallow — this  ground.  The  brave  men, 
living  and  dead,  who  struggled  here  have  consecrated  it,  far 
above  our  poor  power  to  add  or  detract.  The  world  will 
little  note,  nor  long  remember  what  we  say  here,  but  it  can 
never  forget  what  they  did  here.  It  is  for  us  the  living, 
rather,  to  be  dedicated  here  to  the  unfinished  work  which  they 
who  fought  here  have  thus  far  so  nobly  advanced.  It  is  rather 
for  us  to  be  here  dedicated  to  the  great  task  remaining  before 
us — that  from  these  honored  dead  we  take  increased  devotion 
to  that  cause  for  which  they  gave  the  last  full  measure  of 
devotion;  that  we  here  highly  resolve  that  these  dead  shall 
not  have  died  in  vain;  that  this  nation,  under  God,  shall  have 
a  new  birth  of  freedom;  and  that  government  of  the  people,  by 
the  people,  for  the  people,  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth." 

Mr.  Lincoln  did  more  than  to  talk  and  fight  for 
unionism.  He  did  his  best  to  live  it;  that  is,  he  did 
his  best  to  work  with  all  men  who  wanted  to  save 
the  Union,  however  much  they  differed  from  him  in 


MR.  LINCOLN  AND  His  SON  THOMAS,  FAMILIARLY  KNOWN  AS  TAD, 
ABOUT  1864 

Photograph  by  Brady. 


Victory!  227 

their  views  of  how  it  was  to  be  done,  however  hard 
they  might  be  to  work  with,  however  unjust,  re 
vengeful,  or  insolent  they  might  be  to  him  per 
sonally. 

No  man  ever  treated  another  with  more  contempt 
than  Mr.  Stanton  had  at  one  time  treated  Mr.  Lin 
coln.  But  Lincoln  knew  that  Stanton  was  able,  that 
he  had  a  passion  for  the  Union  that  was  like  his 
own ;  and  that  the  Union  might  have  his  services,  he 
made  him  Secretary  of  War. 

Horace  Greeley  at  one  time  wilfully  misrepre 
sented  the  President  in  the  Tribune.  He  had  let 
ters  from  Greeley  in  his  possession  which  would  have 
disposed  thoroughly  of  the  harmful  accusations,  but 
to  publish  them  would  have  discredited  Greeley; 
and  the  Union  needed  the  support  of  the  Tribune. 
Rather  than  weaken  that  support  he  himself  suf 
fered  a  serious  personal  wrong. 

Mr.  Chase,  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  intrigued 
under  his  very  eyes  to  prevent  his  renomination  in 
1864;  but  Mr.  Lincoln  ignored  the  treachery.  He 
knew  that  Chase  was  of  great  value  to  the  cause, 
that  his  one  weakness  was  an  uncontrolled  desire 
to  be  President  of  the  United  States.  "He  would 
be  a  good  President,"  was  all  that  Mr.  Lincoln 
would  say  when  his  friends  pointed  out  Chase's  ac 
tivities.  He  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  any 
contest  that  would  in  any  way  divide  those  who  were 
supporting  the  Union. 

This  will  to  unite  with  others  for  a  main  pur 
pose,  cost  what  it  might  to  his  own  pride,  reputa 
tion,  ambition,  became  more  and  more  a  part  of 


228  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

him.  That  great  American  poet,  Walt  Whitman, 
was  much  in  Washington  during  the  war  and  saw 
Mr.  Lincoln  so  often,  as  he  went  to  and  fro  about 
his  business,  that  they  fell  to  nodding  and  smiling 
at  each  other,  though,  so  far  as  Whitman  tells  us, 
they  never  spoke.  The  poet  had  a  great  under 
standing  of  men,  and  he  came  to  feel  finally,  as  he 
says,  that  the  hardpan  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  character 
was  unionism,  that  it  had  become  in  him  a  unew 
virtue" — something  to  be  added  to  the  other  vir 
tues  that  he  found  in  his  character,  such  as  "hon 
esty,  goodness,  shrewdness,  conscience." 

Whitman  was  right.  Unionism  was  not  only  the 
great  passion  of  his  heart,  the  backbone  of  all  his 
hopes  and  dreams  for  this  land  and  all  lands;  but 
it  was  a  part  of  his  character.  This  being  true, 
you  can  understand  how  much  his  reelection  in  1864 
meant  to  him.  It  answered  the  great  question  that 
had  been  following  him  all  through  the  war.  It 
showed,  as  he  said,  that  he,  who  was  most  devoted 
to  the  Union  and  most  opposed  to  treason,  would 
receive  most  of  the  people's  votes.  That  is,  that 
when  the  people  had  made  a  government  through 
which  they  believed  they  could  secure  liberty  and 
equal  opportunity,  they  would  not  allow  it  to  be 
broken  up  by  attacks  from  within  any  more  than 
by  attacks  from  without. 

The  election  meant  the  end  of  the  war.  It  was 
an  order  from  the  people  to  go  ahead  on  the  lines 
that  Grant  had  laid  down.  It  would  take  a  miracle 
now  to  save  the  Confederacy.  Lee's  army  in  Rich 
mond  and  Petersburg  was  besieged  by  Grant  and 


Victory!  229 

daily  growing  weaker,  while  Grant  was  daily  grow 
ing  stronger.  Johnston,  with  the  only  other  large 
Confederate  body,  was  being  driven  northward  by 
Sherman,  who,  after  the  fall  of  Atlanta,  leaving 
forces  behind  to  take  care  of  the  enemy  still  remain 
ing  in  Tennessee,  had  started  on  a  march  through 
Georgia.  He  had  captured  Savannah  and  Charles 
ton,  and  then,  turning  northward,  had  swept  the 
Confederate  forces  ahead  of  him.  That  is,  Lee 
and  Johnston  with  their  armies  were  being  gradu 
ally  pressed  together  by  the  forces  south  as  well  as 
north  of  them.  This  meant  that  in  not  many  weeks 
the  military  end  must  come. 

But  Mr.  Lincoln  was  leaving  all  this  to  Grant. 
He  had  other  things  to  do.  The  first  of  these  was 
to  make  sure  that  the  cause  of  all  this  trouble — 
slavery,  was  forever  ended  in  the  United  States. 
As  we  have  seen,  the  Emancipation  Proclamation 
did  not  do  this.  It  needed  an  amendment  to  the 
Constitution  to  make  it  certain;  and  this  amendment 
had,  at  Mr.  Lincoln's  request,  been  put  into  the 
platform  on  which  he  had  run  and  been  reflected. 
It  was  now  before  Congress.  In  January  it  was 
adopted.  Never,  in  all  his  troubled  life,  had  he  had 
?,  deeper  satisfaction.  "This  amendment  is  a  king's 
cure  for  all  the  evils ;  it  winds  the  whole  thing  up," 
he  said  the  night  after  its  passage  to  the  serenaders 
who  surrounded  the  White  House  cheering  him  and 
clamoring  for  a  speech. 

To  be  sure,  there  was  still  work  to  do,  for  an 
amendment  to  the  Constitution  requires  ratification 
by  two  thirds  of  the  States.  He  thought  they  were 


230  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

going  to  get  it.  That  very  day  Illinois  had  ratified. 
In  the  next  month  sixteen  States  followed  her  and 
two  of  these,  Virginia  and  Louisiana,  had  been 
among  the  seceders.  Before  the  end  of  the  year  the 
amendment  was  proclaimed  a  part  of  the  Consti 
tution  of  the  United  States. 

Mr.  Lincoln  rejoiced  the  more  over  the  amend 
ment  because  he  felt  the  negroes  had  shown  them 
selves  worthy  of  it.  They  had  helped  themselves 
from  the  beginning  of  the  war.  When  it  was  pro 
posed  to  make  soldiers  of  them,  there  had  been  on 
both  sides  ridicule  and  protest — they  would  not 
fight.  But  they  had  fought,  and  it  was  not  many 
months  after  the  Emancipation  Proclamation  was 
issued  before  Mr.  Lincoln  had  the  satisfaction  of 
answering  those  who  declared  they  would  not  fight 
for  negroes,  that  there  were  200,000  negroes  fight 
ing  for  them — that  is,  fighting  for  the  Union.  If 
they  would  not  fight  when  the  reward  of  that  fight 
ing  was  to  be  their  own  freedom,  he  felt  that  they 
were  not  worth  freeing,  but  they  had  made  good 
soldiers. 

Mr.  Lincoln  not  only  put  the  negroes  into  the 
army,  and  insisted  that  they  be  rewarded  according 
to  the  services  that  they  gave,  but  in  every  way  he 
could  he  encouraged  them  to  go  to  work  for  them 
selves,  go  into  business,  go  to  school.  He  sought 
in  every  way  to  show  them  his  friendly  interest. 
There  was  bitter  criticism,  particularly  in  Washing 
ton,  of  the  attention  he  gave  them,  but  it  did  not 
budge  him.  There  was  a  truly  great  negro  who 
arose  during  the  war — Frederick  Douglass ;  and  Mr. 


Fictory!  231 

Lincoln,  wishing  to  talk  to  him,  sent  his  own  car 
riage  to  bring  him  to  the  White  House  to  take  tea 
with  him. 

At  the  last  New  Year's  reception,  held  on  Janu 
ary  I,  1865,  hundreds  of  colored  people  gathered 
at  the '  doors,  hesitating  to  enter  yet  desiring  to 
shake  the  President's  hand.  When  the  crowd  of 
whites  had  retired,  they  began  timidly  to  enter. 
Wearied  as  he  was  by  the  long  hours  of  handshak 
ing,  when  Mr.  Lincoln  discovered  his  visitors,  he 
insisted  that  all  should  be  admitted.  They  pressed 
about  him,  weeping,  blessing  him,  and  kissing  his 
hand.  To  the  negro  Mr.  Lincoln  now  was  friend 
and  savior.  Not  many  of  them,  perhaps,  realized 
just  what  had  happened.  Few  of  them  certainly 
realized  the  burden  of  responsibility  and  effort  that 
freedom  would  bring  them;  but  all  of  them  real 
ized  that  the  hated  word  "Slave"  was  wiped  out. 
He  was  "Massa  Linkin,"  "Uncle  Sam" — one  never 
to  be  forgotten  when  they  prayed.  Better  than 
many  white  people,  the  negroes  seem  to  have  real 
ized  the  burden  that  was  upon  him — "  Tears  like 
he  got  everything  hitched  to  him,"  one  faithful 
negro  said,  in  exhorting  his  friends  to  pray  for  the 
President.  To  all  of  them  he  came  as  something 
more  than  a  man.  "He  walks  the  earf  like  the 
Lord,"  they  said. 

The  most  striking  proof  of  what  the  negro,  backed 
by  the  government,  had  been  able  to  do  for  himself 
came  on  March  4,  1865,  when  Mr.  Lincoln  was 
inaugurated,  for  in  the  procession  which  accompa 
nied  him  to  the  Capitol  were  not  only  negro  regi- 


232  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

ments  of  such  soldierly  bearing  as  to  wring  admira 
tion  from  even  the  hostile,  but  there  were  delegations 
from  colored  civic  bodies,  proofs  of  the  promptness 
and  efficiency  with  which  representatives  of  the  race 
had  seized  the  opportunity  that  under  his  leader 
ship  had  been  held  out  to  them. 

It  brought  him  great  joy.  Indeed  those  who  had 
begun  to  feel  that  he  never  would  be  glad  again, 
so  heavily  had  the  war  weighed  down  his  heart  and 
mind,  were  already  noting  a  change  in  his  color,  his 
eye,  the  way  he  carried  himself.  He  was  begin 
ning  to  enjoy  things  again.  Particularly  was  he  en 
joying  his  boy  Tad — the  only  one  that  had  been 
with  him  after  Willie's  death  in  February  of  1862, 
for  his  eldest  son  Robert  was  still  in  college. 

People  noted  now  that  Mr.  Lincoln  rarely  went 
out  without  Tad  at  his  side.  He  even  rode  in  the 
carnage  beside  him  when  he  went  to  his  inaugura 
tion.  Tad,  now  ten  years  old,  was  a  wonderful 
companion  for  him,  for  a  boy  more  full  of  life  and 
vigor  and  more  bubbling  over  with  mischief  never 
lived.  One  of  Mr.  Lincoln's  secretaries,  John  Hay, 
a  very  young  man  himself,  only  twenty-four,  a  lover 
of  life  in  all  its  forms,  lived  in  the  White  House, 
and  has  left  a  charming  picture  of  the  boy. 

He  had  a  bad  opinion  of  books,  Mr.  Hay  tells 
us,  and  no  opinion  of  discipline.  He  thought  little 
of  a  tutor  who  would  not  help  him  in  kite  flying,  in 
yoking  his  kids  to  a  chair,  or  driving  his  dogs  tan 
dem  across  the  south  lawn.  Tad  was  a  passionate 
lover  of  animals.  He  filled  the  White  House  with 
cats  and  kittens,  dogs  and  goats,  in  much  the  same 


Victory!  233 

way  that  Mr.  Roosevelt's  boys  did  in  his  day.  If 
harm  came  to  one  of  his  pets,  it  was  such  a  grief  to 
him  that  it  was  a  grief  to  Mr.  Lincoln  himself.  A 
pet  goat  went  astray  once  when  he  was  in  New  York 
with  his  mother,  and  Mr.  Lincoln  as  well  as  the 
housekeeper  spent  time  in  trying  to  hunt  Nannie 
up ;  and  when  they  failed,  Mr.  Lincoln  wrote  a  long 
letter  explaining  the  case. 

Tad  loved  to  get  up  things.  Once  for  days,  in 
collusion  with  some  of  his  little  friends,  he  held  a 
minstrel  show  in  the  attic  of  the  White  House,  he 
being  a  great  success  as  The  Black  Statue.  A  penny 
was  charged  for  admission,  and  soldiers,  orderlies, 
and  strangers  in  town  flocked  to  this  unusual  show. 

One  morning,  being  at  a  loss  for  something  to 
do,  he  bought  out  the  stock  of  gingerbread  from  an 
old  lady  who  kept  a  stand  near  the  White  House, 
teased  a  government  carpenter  to  give  him  a  board 
and  sawhorses,  and  set  up  shop  in  front  of  the  im 
posing  entrance  through  which  all  distinguished  vis 
itors  passed.  You  can  be  sure  that  there  was  no 
senator  or  office  seeker  who  came  up  that  morning 
that  did  not  buy  something  from  the  keen  little  mer 
chant.  When  he  was  discovered  and  a  sudden  end 
put  to  his  business,  his  gingerbread  was  about  gone 
and  his  hat  full  of  money. 

Mr.  Lincoln  backed  him  up  in  most  of  his  esca 
pades.  "Let  him  run,"  Mr.  Hay  quotes  the  Presi 
dent  as  saying,  "he  has  time  enough  to  learn  his  let 
ters  and  get  pokey.  Bob  was  just  such  a  little  ras 
cal,  and  now  he  is  a  very  decent  boy."  And  in 
truth  Tad  was  a  decent  boy — truthful  and  generous. 


234  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

There  was  many  a  poor  woman  and  tattered  soldier 
that  some  rigorous  servant  was  trying  to  keep  away 
from  Mr.  Lincoln  whom  Tad  seized  by  the  hand 
and  dragged  to  his  father,  insisting  that  their  cases 
be  immediately  attended  to. 

Truly  as  he  loved  his  father,  Tad  never  had  any 
proper  sense  of  showing  him  respect.  He  had 
picked  up  many  a  street  song  about  "Old  Abe"  and 
would  sing  these  songs  saucily  before  his  father, 
often  following  at  his  heels  about  the  White  House 
grounds,  singing  a  doggerel  at  the  top  of  his  voice, 
Mr.  Lincoln  paying  no  attention. 

Tad  was  an  enthusiastic  lover  of  the  soldiers, 
and  never  was  prouder  than  when,  at  the  request 
of  the  captain  of  Company  K  which  guarded  the 
White  House  grounds,  he  was  allowed  to  have  a 
uniform  and  to  wear  it.  Often  he  rode,  in  full 
regalia,  with  this  company  as  it  attended  his  father ; 
and  he  took  an  active  part  in  its  games  and  pranks. 

The  way  Mr.  Lincoln  "spoiled"  Tad  came  in  for 
much  criticism  from  both  friends  and  enemies  in 
Washington.  These  were  the  same  people  who 
criticized  him  for  telling  amusing  stories,  for  read 
ing  funny  books,  like  Artemus  Ward's,  for  sitting 
down  at  the  mess  table  of  Company  K,  for  chaffing 
with  the  common  soldiers  when  he  visited  the  camps, 
for  giving  a  long  audience  to  Tom  Thumb  when 
Barnum's  circus  visited  Washington,  for  going  out 
by  himself  in  the  morning  to  buy  his  own  paper,  for 
looking  up  information  that  he  wanted  in  different 
departments  instead  of  sending  orderlies  to  get  it 
for  him — criticized  him  for  being  natural  and  kind 


Fictory!  235 

and  simple  in  all  his  ways,  for  not  feeling  himself 
above  others,  for  wanting  them  to  feel  that  he  was 
their  friend  as  well  as  their  President. 

Mr.  Lincoln's  joy  that  the  war  was  so  near  an 
end  was  the  more  beautiful  because  it  had  no  trace 
of  exultation  over  those  who  had  opposed  him  in 
the  North  or  fought  him  in  the  South.  We  talk 
about  being  good  losers,  but  the  real  test  of  a  man 
and  a  gentleman  is  being  a  good  winner.  It  is  poor 
sportsmanship  not  to  try  to  make  him  whom  you  have 
defeated  forget  his  defeat.  The  conquerer  in  war 
who  will  not  forgive  but  will  punish  and  punish  and 
punish,  beyond  the  terms  of  peace,  is  a  maker  of 
new  wars.  Mr.  Lincoln  was  too  great  a  gentle 
man  as  well  as  too  wise  a  man  to  want  to  humiliate 
those  he  had  conquered.  It  was  no  pleasure  for  him 
to  triumph  over  any  one,  he  told  the  serenaders 
that  crowded  under  his  window  the  night  of  his  re 
election.  He  got  no  satisfaction  from  knowing  that 
somebody  had  been  disappointed  or  pained  by  his 
success. 

He  talked  the  same  thing  to  the  group  of  excited 
young  men  who  inside  were  gloating  over  the  re 
turns  as  they  came  in  and  who  were  particularly 
exultant  over  the  defeat  of  certain  violent  anti- 
Lincoln  men.  "You  have  more  of  that  feeling  of 
personal  resentment  than  I.  Perhaps  I  may  have 
too  little  of  it,  but  I  never  thought  it  paid.  A  man 
has  not  time  to  spend  half  his  life  in  quarrels.  If 
any  man  ceases  to  attack  me,  I  never  remember  the 
past  against  him." 

One  of  his  chief  anxieties  in  these  days  was  to 


236  Boy  Scouts9  Life  of  Lincoln 

get  the  States  that  had  been  out  or  half  out  of  the 
Union  back  in,  to  get  them  settled  into  their  old 
relations,  their  rebellion  forgotten,  and  the  whole 
country  backing  them  in  all  honest  efforts  to  accept 
the  results  of  the  war.  He  wanted  them  to  feel 
at  home,  to  work  to  have  things  as  if  there  had  been 
no  war. 

If  this  was  to  be  done  the  North  must  not  med 
dle  overmuch  with  the  government  the  States  set 
up  as  they  came  back — they  must  not  interfere  with 
their  elections.  So  far  as  possible  he  wanted  them 
to  come  back  in  their  own  way.  The  question  was 
not  at  all,  as  he  saw  it,  whether  a  new  State  gov 
ernment  was  perfect  or  not.  The  point  was  to  get 
something  and  help  to  improve  it  as  time  went  on. 
One  of  his  last  counsels  in  regard  to  the  government 
of  the  States  that  were  returning  was  not  to  reject 
and  spurn  what  they  tried  to  do.  "If  we  do  that," 
he  said,  "we  would  do  our  utmost  to  disorganize 
and  disperse  them."  True,  the  new  government 
might  be  to  what  it  should  be  only  "as  the  egg  is  to 
the  fowl,  but  we  shall  sooner  have  the  fowl  by 
hatching  the  egg  than  by  smashing  it." 

In  all  his  talk  and  writing  about  getting  things 
to  going  again  in  the  old  way  there  was  this  same 
sound  good  sense  and  this  same  kindliness.  But 
he  had  as  great  difficulty  in  persuading  men  to  his 
views  of  the  problem  as  he  had  had  in  holding  them 
to  his  way  of  saving  the  Union.  The  chief  hin 
drance  came  from  a  hateful  spirit  of  revenge  that  a 
few  men  felt  toward  all  who  had  tried  to  go  out 
of  the  Union.  They  refused  to  trust  their  efforts 


Victory!  237 

and  their  pledges.  When  Louisiana,  in  1863,  after 
the  Confederates  were  swept  from  power,  started 
a  new  Union  government  and  wanted  to  send  rep 
resentatives  to  Congress,  there  were  people  who 
insisted  that  Northerners  alone  should  be  elected. 
Mr.  Lincoln  realized  both  the  injustice  and  the  bad 
policy  of  such  a  procedure.  "To  send  a  parcel  of 
Northern  men  here  as  representatives,  elected  at 
the  point  of  the  bayonet,  would  be  disgusting  and 
outrageous,  and  were  I  a  member  of  Congress  I 
would  vote  against  admitting  any  such  man  to  a 
seat."  He  was  for  helping  the  people  back  in  the 
way  they  wanted  to  come,  however  wrong  he 
thought  they  might  have  been  in  going  out. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  no  more  willing  to  punish  the 
men  who  had  led  in  the  rebellion  than  he  was  to  hin 
der  and  humiliate  the  people  in  their  efforts  to  re 
store  their  old  relation  to  the  Union.  Congress  had 
passed  an  act  declaring  the  leaders  in  the  Confeder 
acy  traitors.  They  were  to  be  imprisoned,  hanged, 
but  he  would  hear  to  none  of  it.  Unyielding  as  he 
was  when  any  one  talked  about  a  peace  which  would 
sacrifice  either  the  Union  or  freedom  for  the  black 
man,  he  was  all  mercy  when  they  came  to  talk  about 
the  men  who  had  led  in  the  rebellion.  In  every  pos 
sible  way  he  spread  the  idea  that  he  would  have 
nothing  to  do  with  any  form  of  revenge.  It  shamed 
him  that  the  great  cause  should  be  soiled  by  so 
mean  a  spirit. 

"I  used  to  know  a  boy  in  Springfield,"  Mr.  Lin 
coln  said,  when  some  one  asked  him  what  was  he 
going  to  do  with  Jefferson  Davis,  "who  saved  up 


238  Boy  Scouts9  Life  of  Lincoln 

his  money  and  bought  a  coon.  But  the  coon  was 
too  much  for  him — fought  him  with  tooth  and  claw, 
scratched  his  face,  tore  his  clothes.  After  a  few 
days  he  took  the  animal  out  on  a  leash. 

"Why  don't  you  get  rid  of  that  coon,  if  he  is  such 
a  trouble  to  you?"  a  man  who  saw  him  sitting  dis 
consolately  on  the  curb  asked. 

"Hush,"  the  boy  said,  "don't  you  see  he  is  gnaw 
ing  his  rope  off?  I  will  let  him  do  it  and  then  I  will 
go  home  and  tell  the  folks  he  got  away  from  me." 

This  spirit  of  mercy  grew  in  him.  When  he 
came  to  his  inauguration  on  March  4,  1864,  he  gave 
it  expression  in  one  of  the  most  beautiful  paragraphs 
in  all  English  literature,  his  idea  of  the  spirit  with 
which  men  should  look  upon  the  mighty  problems 
which  always  follow  a  war: 

"With  malice  toward  none;  with  charity  for  all;  with  firm 
ness  in  the  right,  as  God  gives  us  to  see  the  right,  let  us 
strive  on  to  finish  the  work  we  are  in,  to  bind  up  the  nation's 
wounds;  to  care  for  him  who  shall  have  borne  the  battle,  and 
for  his  widow,  and  his  orphan — to  do  all  which  may  achieve 
and  cherish  a  just  and  lasting  peace  among  ourselves,  and 
with  all  nations." 

Not  only  was  it  for  the  North  to  be  merciful ;  he 
felt  it  should  be  humble.  The  North  as  well  as  the 
South  had  consented  at  the  start  to  the  continuance 
of  slavery  in  the  country. 

"If  we  shall  suppose,"  he  said  in  his  inaugural, 
"that  American  slavery  is  one  of  those  offenses 
which,  in  the  providence  of  God,  must  needs  come, 
but  which,  having  continued  through  His  appointed 
time,  He  now  wills  to  remove,  and  that  He  gives 


Victory/  239 

to  both  North  and  South  this  terrible  war,  as  the 
woe  due  to  those  by  whom  the  offense  came,  shall 
we  discern  therein  any  departure  from  those  divine 
attributes  which  the  believers  in  a  living  God  always 
ascribe  to  him?  Fondly  do  we  hope — fervently  do 
we  pray — that  this  mighty  scourge  of  war  may  speed 
ily  pass  away.  Yet,  if  God  wills  that  it  continue 
until  all  the  wealth  piled  by  the  bondman's  two  hun 
dred  and  fifty  years  of  unrequited  toil  shall  be  sunk, 
and  until  every  drop  of  blood  drawn  with  the  lash 
shall  be  paid  by  another  drawn  with  the  sword,  as 
was  said  three  thousand  years  ago,  so  still  it  must 
be  said,  'The  judgments  of  the  Lord  are  true  and 
righteous  altogether.'  ' 

A  few  days  after  his  inauguration,  Mr.  Lincoln 
took  a  vacation — took  it  with  the  army  behind 
Petersburg.  With  Mrs.  Lincoln,  Tad,  and  a  few 
of  his  friends,  he  sailed  down  the  Potomac,  and  up 
the  James  to  Grant's  headquarters,  where  he  re 
mained  for  ten  days.  The  time  was  filled  with  vis 
its  to  the  soldiers,  in  camp  and  in  their  trenches, 
with  long  talks  with  officers  before  roaring  camp 
fires,  with  reviews  of  the  army,  with  excursions  up 
and  down  the  river  with  Admiral  Porter  who  was 
commanding  the  naval  forces  supporting  Grant. 
All  of  the  business  of  war  went  on  under  his  eyes. 
There  was  much  hard  fighting,  and  he  saw  much  of 
the  wounded  and  dead;  but  he  shirked  none  of  the 
sorrow.  He  was  supported  by  the  consciousness 
that  it  must  end  now  very  soon. 

When  he  was  with  Grant  and  Porter,  he  fre 
quently  turned  the  talk  to  what  was  to  be  done  with 


240  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

the  leaders  and  the  rank  and  file  of  the  Confederacy 
when  the  war  was  over.  He  wanted  Grant  to  be 
very  liberal  with  Lee  and  his  men.  "We  must  get 
them  to  plowing  at  once,"  he  said,  "to  gathering  in 
their  crops,  to  eating  popcorn  at  their  own  firesides. 
If  you  can  get  them  to  do  that,  you  cannot  get  them 
to  shoulder  a  musket  again  for  half  a  century."  "If 
Grant  is  wise,"  he  told  Porter,  "he  will  give  them 
their  guns  to  shoot  crows  with  and  their  horses  to 
plow  with — it  will  do  no  harm."  As  for  the  lead 
ers  themselves,  his  whole  idea  was,  during  this  visit 
at  City  Point,  to  "let  them  down  easy." 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  still  at  Grant's  headquarters 
when,  on  the  morning  of  April  3d,  news  was  brought 
to  him  that  Richmond  was  being  abandoned. 
Petersburg  at  last  had  fallen,  and  General  Lee  saw 
that  the  capitol  could  no  longer  be  held.  Jefferson 
Davis  and  his  Cabinet  had  left,  and  Lee  was  march 
ing  his  army  southward,  with  Grant  after  him  in 
double  quick  time. 

Richmond  had  suffered  cruelly  from  fire  and  bom 
bardment,  and  was  in  terrible  disorder  now  that  its 
defenders  had  been  withdrawn.  But,  regardless  of 
all  this,  Mr.  Lincoln  insisted  that  he  should  see  the 
city.  Two  days  after  the  evacuation  began,  he  en 
tered  with  little  Tad,  three  or  four  friends,  and  a 
small  guard,  and  walked  through  the  burning,  shat 
tered  town. 

Its  streets  were  filled  with  drunken  whites  and 
blacks,  and  from  doors  and  windows  hostile  men 
and  women  watched  his  progress.  Never  perhaps 
had  Mr.  Lincoln  done  a  more  reckless  thin?  than 


Vktory!  241 

in  this  visit  to  Richmond;  but  here,  as  all  through 
his  term  as  President,  he  ignored  danger.  He  had 
that  natural,  instinctive  courage  which  leads  men  to 
go  where  they  think  their  work  calls  them,  indiffer 
ent  and  even  impatient  of  caution.  From  the  day 
that  he  had  been  nominated  he  had  had  repeated 
warnings  of  danger  to  his  life.  It  was  only  the 
watchfulness  of  the  War  Department  and  of  de 
tective  agencies  working  separately  that  saved  him 
from  assassination  on  his  way  to  Washington  for 
his  inauguration. 

As  the  war  went  on  the  number  of  disordered 
minds  that  felt  that,  by  putting  an  end  to  his  life, 
the  cause  of  the  South  might  be  served,  multiplied. 
Mr.  Lincoln  would  hear  just  as  little  as  he  could  of 
the  plots  that  were  unearthed,  and  yet  they  came  to 
him  so  thick  that  he  had  a  drawer  in  his  desk  which 
he  called  his  "Assassination"  drawer.  uYou  get 
used  to  anything"  he  would  say  sometimes  to 
alarmed  friends.  His  burdens  were  so  heavy  and 
so  many  that  he  would  not  cripple  himself  by  in 
dulging  in  thoughts  of  personal  danger.  The  guard 
that  was  kept  about  the  White  House  and  the  secret 
service  men  who  attended  him  everywhere  had  great 
difficulty  in  watching  him.  He  liked  to  go  out  alone, 
to  ride  alone.  He  disliked  guards.  One  of  his 
habits  that  gave  them  the  greatest  uneasiness  was 
slipping  away  from  them  on  summer  nights  after 
he  had  finished  his  work  at  the  White  House,  to 
walk  alone  to  the  Soldiers'  Home,  three  miles  away. 

Mr.  Lincoln  was  quite  as  indifferent  to  danger 
when  visiting  the  armies  as  he  was  in  going  about 


242  Boy  Scouts'  Life  of  Lincoln 

Washington.  More  than  once  in  the  war  he  ven 
tured  into  conspicuous  places  along  a  battle  line, 
and  had  to  be  hurried  away  by  watchful  protectors 
who  realized  what  a  wonderful  target  his  tall,  lean 
figure,  topped  by  a  high  black  hat,  made  for  Con 
federate  riflemen. 

As  he  had  gone  about  Washington  and  along  bat 
tle  lines,  careless  of  harm  to  himself,  so  now  he 
went  among  the  distracted,  embittered  people  of 
Richmond.  No  bitterness  or  enmity  toward  them 
Was  in  his  heart.  Possibly  he  was  willing  to  run 
this  great  danger  to  show  them  that  he  was  their 
friend,  not  their  conqueror.  The  wisest  among 
them  knew  this.  When  in  the  winter  before  he  had 
gone  himself  to  Hampton  Roads  to  tell  Alexander 
Stephens  and  other  agents  of  the  Confederacy  that 
they  could  have  peace  as  soon  as  they  would  give 
up  their  idea  of  separation  and  consent  to  emanci 
pation,  and  not  before,  the  question  of  what  would 
be  done  with  the  leaders  of  the  rebellion  had  come 
up.  Would  they  be  hanged?  Stephens  had  said 
to  him  then  something  which  pleased  him  enor 
mously:  "To  tell  the  truth,  we  have  none  of  us 
been  much  afraid  of  being  hanged  with  you  as  Presi 
dent." 

Directly  after  the  visit  to  Richmond  Mr.  Lincoln 
went  back  to  Washington.  All  the  way  home  his 
mind  was  filled  with  ideas  of  mercy.  As  they 
approached  the  city,  Mrs.  Lincoln  said  to  him, 
"Washington  is  filled  with  our  enemies."  The 
President  turned  on  her  sharply.  "Don't  use  that 
word.  There  are  no  enemies  now."  He  was  not 


Victory!  243 

willing  that  even  in  his  own  household  the  thought 
should  be  uttered. 

He  kept  this  idea  uppermost  in  his  talks  with  the 
members  of  his  Cabinet.  On  April  I4th  there  was 
a  Cabinet  meeting.  The  President  was  very  happy. 
Lee  had  surrendered  to  Grant  on  the  9th.  Only 
Johnston's  army  remained  in  arms,  and  its  speedy 
surrender  to  Sherman  was  certain.  He  was  sure 
they  would  soon  hear  of  it,  he  said,  perhaps  even 
before  morning,  because  the  night  before  he  had  had 
the  dream  that  all  through  the  war  had  come  to 
him  before  great  events — before  the  fall  of  Sumter, 
Antietam,  Gettysburg,  the  fall  of  Atlanta — a  dream 
of  a  dim,  mysterious  ship  sailing  to  a  dark  and  un 
known  shore.  Something  important  always  hap 
pened  after  it.  The  only  important  event  likely  now 
to  occur  was  the  surrender  of  Johnston. 

That  would  end  it  all,  and  their  whole  thought 
now  must  be  to  bring  back  the  States  into  their  old 
relation,  make  everybody  happy  again;  there  must 
be  no  unnecessary  humiliating  or  tormenting — the 
war  was  over.  Nobody  need  expect  him,  he  in 
sisted,  to  have  any  part  in  hanging  or  killing.  Let 
the  leaders  get  out  of  the  country  if  they  wanted 
to — shoo  them  off.  But  no  resentment.  They  are 
to  be  our  fellow  citizens  now,  and  we  must  treat 
them  so.  There  had  been  enough  sacrifice  of  lives. 

And  so  the  Cabinet  meeting  ended;  the  members 
going  home  with  their  minds  full  of  the  merciful 
ness  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 

That  evening  Mrs.  Lincoln  had  arranged  a  thea 
ter  party,  and  rather  late,  after  dinner,  they  went 


244  Boy  Scouts9  Life  of  Lincoln 

with  some  young  friends  to  Ford's  Theater  where 
a  humorous  play  called  "Our  American  Cousin"  was 
to  be  given.  Mr.  Lincoln  loved  the  theater.  It 
rested  him  as  almost  nothing  else  except  his  "funny 
books,"  and  this  evening  he  seemed  to  get  unusual 
pleasure,  perhaps  because  he  carried  a  lighter  heart 
than  he  had  for  so  many  weary  years.  The  audi 
ence,  too,  were  happy  and  friendly,  and  they  cheered 
and  waved  their  handkerchiefs  again  and  again  as 
he  came  into  his  box.  The  third  act  of  the  play  had 
been  reached,  and  he  was  smiling  at  some  gay  sally, 
when  suddenly  the  audience  heard  a  pistol  shot, 
and  saw  a  man  leap  from  the  President's  box.  He 
turned  toward  them  as  he  struck  the  stage,  crying, 
"Sic  semper  tyrannis!"  and  disappeared. 

The  meaning  of  this  strange  interruption  to  the 
play  came  to  the  audience  only  as  they  turned  their 
eyes  to  the  box  from  which  the  man  had  leaped. 
There  they  saw  that  the  President  alone  was  sitting 
quietly  in  his  seat,  that  over  him  hung  Mrs.  Lin 
coln,  sobbing;  that  men  and  women  were  crowding 
in.  They  heard  a  call  for  a  doctor — for  water. 
Then  there  ran  through  the  house  the  whisper,  "The 
President  is  shot — is  dying!" 

They  carried  him,  unconscious,  to  a  bed  in  a  house 
across  the  street;  and  early  the  next  morning  the 
word  went  out  to  the  country  that  Abraham  Lin 
coln  was  dead — dead  at  the  very  hour  that  the  great 
cause  to  which  he  had  given  long  years  of  agony  and 
labor  was  secured. 

The  heart  of  the  country  seemed  to  break  at  the 
news.  In  the  South  wise  men  knew  that  they  had 


Courtesy  of  George  Gray  Barnard. 

STATUE  OF  LINCOLN  MADE  BY  GEORGE  GRAY  BARNARD 


Victory!  245 

lost  their  best  friend,  and  hastened  to  condemn  the 
deed.  On  the  Union  armies,  gay  as  they  were  with 
the  end  of  their  long  struggle,  there  fell  a  silence 
such  as  comes  upon  strong  men  when  they  see  a 
loved  father  dead.  For  days  after  the  news  reached 
Sherman's  army  which  was  singing  its  way  north 
ward,  no  song  was  heard,  no  smile  was  seen.  Father 
Abraham  was  dead. 

They  carried  him  back  to  his  old  home  in  Spring 
field,  and  all  along  the  way  of  the  slow  march,  men 
and  women,  boys  and  girls,  passed  before  the  bier 
as  it  lay  in  state  in  the  cities  or  stood  night  and  day 
watching  the  passage  of  the  train.  Many  a  man 
and  woman  grew  up  to  tell  their  children  and  grand 
children  of  the  moment  when  the  news  of  Abraham 
Lincoln's  death  reached  them.  The  woman  who  is 
writing  these  lines,  a  little  girl  then,  remembers  see 
ing  her  father  coming  toward  the  house — all  the 
spring  out  of  his  step,  his  shoulders  bent,  of  seeing 
her  mother  run  out  and  hearing  her  alarmed  cry, 
"What  is  it?  What  is  it?" — of  seeing,  not  hearing, 
a  whisper  in  her  ear,  of  watching  her  tears,  of  won 
dering  why  the  doors  should  be  closed  and  crape 
hung  on  the  knobs,  of  being  told  something  she  was 
far  from  understanding,  but  which  she  could  never 
forget — " Abraham  Lincoln  is  dead." 

And  so  it  was.  The  whole  North  wept  and  no 
body  who  lived  ever  forgot  the  day  or  hour  when 
the  news  came. 

He  was  a  great,  good  and  wise  man.  He  became 
what  he  was  by  his  fidelity  to  what  he  regarded  to  be 
true,  just,  honorable  and  merciful.  He  early  ac- 


246  Boy  Scouts9  Life  of  Lincoln 

cepted  labor  as  a  necessary  and  dignified  part  of 
man's  life.  To  learn  to  do  something  well  and  to 
do  it  with  all  one's  might  was  the  only  genuine  man 
liness,  in  Lincoln's  judgment.  The  idler  was  a  nui 
sance  to  himself  and  his  fellows. 

He  learned  early  that  a  man's  real  kingdom  is 
his  mind  and  that  no  man  is  so  placed  that  he  does 
not  have  opportunity  to  feed,  train  and  rule  it. 

He  was  equally  concerned  with  the  training  of  the 
heart,  with  keeping  its  impulses  clean  and  noble  and 
kind,  and  though  he  saw  all  about  him  every  form 
of  evil  and  meanness  and  uncleanness,  these  things 
he  resolutely  resisted. 

He  never  allowed  himself  from  his  earliest  life 
to  despise  any  man,  however  poor  and  mean  and 
wrong  that  man  may  have  been.  His  whole  effort 
was  to  help  men,  to  understand  them;  and,  above 
all,  he  desired  liberty  for  all  men.  The  greatest 
idea  that  came  to  him  in  his  boyhood  was  that  of 
the  preciousness  of  freedom.  Nothing  ever  stirred 
him  as  the  thought  that  men  in  forming  this  gov 
ernment  meant  that  all  under  it  should  be  free.  He 
hated  the  contradiction  that  slavery  was  to  this  prin 
ciple,  and  when  the  opportunity  came,  he  was 
willing  to  sacrifice  for  this  idea  of  a  land  in  which 
all  men  should  work  together  for  liberty,  justice, 
and  opportunity,  his  profession,  his  peace  of  mind, 
and  his  life. 

Throughout  the  years  of  terrific  struggle  against 
disunion  and  for  emancipation,  his  one  concern  was 
to  be  right  in  mind  and  heart.  It  did  not  matter 
about  him,  all  that  mattered  was  that  the  truth  should 


Victory!  247 

be  kept  uppermost.  He  indulged  in  no  contempt 
for  those  who  differed  with  him.  They  could  be 
honest  and  think  differently,  he  knew.  He  took  no 
pleasure  in  triumphing  over  any  man  that  he  had 
defeated.  He  would  countenance  no  revengeful  act 
toward  even  those  who  had  tried  to  break  down  the 
Union  whose  preservation  he  believed  to  be  so 
necessary  to  the  future  progress  and  happiness  of 
the  world. 

The  history  of  this  or  no  other  land  offers  to  the 
American  Boy  a  more  worthy  and  beautiful  model 
on  which  to  base  and  rear  his  own  than  Abraham 
Lincoln, 


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WILL  BE  ASSESSED  FOR  FAILURE  TO  RETURN 
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